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OAE AND JERUSALEM

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Cornell University Library
DS 135.G33H58 1918

Rome and Jerusalem; a study In Jewish nat

3 1924 012 933 697

ROME AND JERUSALEM

A STUDY IN JEWISH NATIONALISM

BY

MOSES HESS

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

By MEYER WAXMAN, Ph. D.

NEW YORK
BLOCH PUBLISHING COMPANY

"the JEWISH BOOK CONCERN"

1918

Copyright, 1918, by
BLOCK PUBLISHING COMPANY

PRINTED BY PUBLISHERS PRINTING COMPANY.InEW YORK, U. S. A.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

It was Ruskin who divided all books into two
classes: into books of the hour and books for all
time. To the first belong the great majority of
books; to the second, the few and chosen. To the
latter belongs Rome amd Jerusalem. It is as timely
to-day as it was fifty-six years ago, when it first saw
the light of day; and, in a sense, even more timely,
for Rome wnd Jerusalem belongs to the very few
books which are written in advance of their time.

To-day, when Zionism has grown from a mere
dream in the minds of a few, to a great ideal which
is the goal of a great organization, and Jewish
Nationalism has become a mighty force in Jewish
life, the translator feels confident that an English
version of Rome and Jerusalem, the herald of
Nationalism and trumpet of Zionism, will certainly
find a welcome reception among those to whom the
future of the Jewish people is a matter of deep con-
cern. For the book bears a message to the Zionist
and non-Zionist alike. To the iirst it supplies the
the philosophic basis and the depth of thought which
are essential for the conception as well as the realiza-
tion of his ideal. To the second it furnishes a broader
view of Judaism and of the Jewish problem and its
solution.

5

6 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

The translation has been a labor of love. My
thanks are due to the Publishers, who have encour-
aged me to undertake the work, and especially to my
friend. Dr. B. A. Elzas, who read the manuscript
and offered valuable suggestions.

Meyek Waxman.
New York, April, 1918.

CONTENTS

PAGE
TeaNSLATOE's iNTHODUCnON 9

Moses Hess and His Time 9

Life of Hess 18

The Philosophy of Hess 24

AuTHOH's PtlEfACE 35

FmsT Letter. — The return home — Jewish women — The
source of the historical religion — Family love — Mater
dolorosa 43

Second Letter. — Thoughts on death and resurrection —
Family tombs — Kindred souls — Jewish and Hindu saints
— Schopenhauer — The end of days — The Sabbath of
History 46

Third Letter. — Immortality — Rabbi Jochanan — Nachman-
ides — Messianic travails — Pater noster — Solidarity —
The call of France and the rumbling of the reaction-
aries 50

Fourth Letter. — German Anti-Semitism — Patriotic ro-
manticists and philosophic boolcdealers — Otto Wigand —
Berthold Auerbach — Moleschott — ^Dr. Gallavardin — Re-
form and Jewish noses — A photographic picture —
Hebrew prayers — Patriotism — My grandfather — Our
Mother Rachel — National sorrow — The Black Sabbath 56

Fifth Letter. — Retrospect — The Damascus Affair — A cry
of anguish — Mamserbilbul, i.e., Blood Accusation — Hep,
Hep — The escape into France — Arnold Ruge — Na-
poleon — An honest German — Teutomaniacs — Jefferson
— Fatherlands and Sovereigns — Ubi bene ibi Patria —
The Jewish incognito — The religion of death — Raise
your standard high, my people 67

Sixth Letter. — The noble representatives of the German
spirit — Patriotic Jews — The historian Graetz — Mercier's
Essai sur la Litterature Juive — Autumn and Spring
equinoxes of universal history and its storms — Sabbatai
Zevi — Chasidim — Natural and historical religion — The
Jewish Mother — Victor Hugo — Boerne, Baruch, Itzig . 78

7

CONTENTS

FAGS

Seventh Letter. — The Refonn trick and the uncritical
reaction — Luther and Mendelssohn — The rationalistic
double — The key to the religion of the future — ^The
three epochs in the development of the Jewish spirit —
Restoration of the Jewish State 93

Eighth Letter. — The Neo-Hebraic literature — Luzzato,
Rappoport, Frankel, Kroclunal, Sachs and Heine on
Judab Halevi — Mendelssohn and the Modernists — Schorr
— Sectarians without sects^-Salvador — Fusionists and
Freemasons — Hirsch — The pretended calling of the
Jew in exile 106

Ninth Letter. — A dilemma — The sacred history of man-
kind — Our allies — The unity of the human genus — Races
and folk types — The organism of mankind .... 118

Tenth Letter. — Another dilemma — Experimental sciences
— Philosophy and Religion — Progress and periodic cir-
culation — A genetic comparison of the organic, cosmic
life with the social — Moral necessity or holiness — Epochs
of social evolution: the paleontologieal times of the for-
mation of the embryo, birth period and birth travail,
age of maturity 127

Eleventh Letter. — Regenerated Judaism and the sacri-
ficial cult — Two thousand year yearning of the nation
for a new center in Zion — Patriotic songs and prayers —
An old legend — Signs of the times — The time of return
approaches — The Eastern Question and the Jews — ^A
Frenchman's enthusiastic appeal 141

Twelfth Letter. — The beginning of the end — Solidarity of
the Jews — Philanthropic illusions — The social animal
kingdom — The nurses of progress — The faithful watch-
men of the sacred sepulchre of Jewish nationality —
The last catastrophe 160

Epilogue:

I. Hellenes and Hebrews 179

II. Christ and Spinoza 186

III. The Genetic View of the World 211

IV. The Last Antagonism 216

V. The Last Race Rule 324

VI. A Chapter of History 337

Notes 235

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

Moses Hess and His Time

Among the many notable Jews which the nine-
teenth century produced, who have profoundly in-
fluenced the course of events of the world history in
general, and of Jewry in particular, Moses Hess
holds a prominent place. His services on behalf of
the Jewish National Movement, he having been the
first to supply Jewish Nationalism with a philosophic
basis, undoubtedly entitle him to such a place. But
his original contribution to Jewish thought, his rais-
ing of the Jewish view to the dignity of a world view,
elevate him to a much higher plane. Hess, like the
Prophets of old, was ahead of his times, and saw
dreams and visions in the distant future. And though
his own generation did not manifest a proper appre-
ciation of his ideas, still as time passed on and the
seeds which he sowed have gradually borne fruit, and
the Jewish National Movement, of which he was the
Prophet, became a vital force in the life of world
Jewry, the writings of Hess have attracted more and
more attention. It is especially interesting at the
present moment, when we are in the grip of a world
war, and are expecting events which may have a last-
ing effect on the future of Jews and Judaism, to

g

10 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

study the words of this thinker, to whom Judaism is
more than mere dogmatism and Jewish Nationalism
more than a striving toward the establishment of a
petty political State, but both combined, forming a
mighty intellectual, spiritual, and social force in the
life of humanity in general, and Jewry in particular.
Yet with all his originality, Hess was, after all, a
child of his time ; and in his book Rome and Jerusa-
lem are mirrored all the different tendencies of the
age, so that in order to grasp its full importance,
we must have a bird's-eye view of aU the currents,
political and intellectual, which swayed the general
and Jewish life of that period.

The first half of the nineteenth century was a tur-
bulent time for Germany. It was the period during
which the gradual genesis of the German Empire and
the birth of its Constitution took place. And, as in
all periods of generation, struggle was its chief fea-
ture. The foundation for the strivings toward unity
and democracy was laid by Napoleon who, through
his Confederacy of the South German States, and
their model Constitutional government, proved to the
Germans the value of these two political boons. The
youth of Germany, responding to the call to arms in
the War of Liberation against Napoleon, hoped to
liberate Germany not only from foreign rule, but
also from petty tyranny and autocracy.

They were, however, bitterly disappointed in their
hopes. The Holy Alliance, the dominating spirit
of which was Mettemich, strove with all the power

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 11

at its disposal to obstruct these tendencies. It was
to its interest to keep Germany split into small
States, so as to avoid the rise of the people against
their rulers. It therefore attempted to perpetuate
this divisicm by incorporating it in the Articles of
the German Confederation which were forced upon
GSermany by Mettemich. And thus the struggle
began.

The stragglers were of two different types, the
Conservatives or Nationalists, and the Liberals or
Radicals. The Nationalists, led originally by Tum-
vater Jahn (mentioned frequentiy by Hess in his let-
ters), the one ^o founded the gymnastic societies
known as Tumvereinen, were extreme chauvinists
and reactionary in their tendencies, with the excep-
tion of their demand for a constitutionfj govern-
ment. The Liberals, influenced by the French ideals
of liberty, equality and fraternity, were mentally of
a revolutionary attitude. In the thirties, there was
added to the political influence of France also the
social. The rise of a laboring class, as a result of
the development of industry, brought in its wake a
new proUem, the economic. The theories which at-
tonpt to find the solution to this problem by pro-
posing a change in the distribution of wealth, and
later became known as Socialism, found many ad-
herents in Germany. There was, of course, no hard
and fast line of division between the various tenden-
cies. All kinds of dreamers and visionaries found a
hearing. Their common enany was the autocratic
government. Even later, when Socialism began to

12 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

crystallize itself as a distinct class movement, it still
united forces in the political struggle with the Lib-
erals. The center of both wings, the Nationalists
and the Liberals, were the Universities. It was the
intellectual class, the professors, students, writers
of all stamps and brands, who were the leaders in
this popular struggle, and mostly on the Liberal side.
The government sought to repress the movement,
but the more it was repressed, the more it spread
among the masses. The Liberal movement reached
its height in the forties, and culminated in the Revo-
lution of 1848. This Revolution, however, ended in
a failure. It satisfied only the Nationalistic claims.
It brought Germany a step nearer to unification,
and introduced constitutional government, but the
Radicals, who had expected a complete overthrow
of Monarchy, and the Socialists, who awaited the
approach of the Social Revolution, despaired of their
aims, and turned to other activities. Some were ex-
iled from Germany; among them was Hess. The
trend of German life after 1848 was more of a
Nationalistic type, which finally culminated in the
unification of Germany in 1870.

The political struggle was only the outward ex-
pression of an inner conflict of different intellectual
currents. The intellectual aspect of Germany in the
last three decades of the first half of the century
presented a veritable eddy of ideas, tendencies, and
spiritual movements. The center of the field was
held by Hegelianism. Of all the German philosoph-
ical systems, there was none which infiuenced the

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 13

course of political and social events so profoundly
as this. Hegel's great contribution to human
thought is his application of the concept of evolu-
tion to life and thought. His Dialectics is nothing
but a property of thought, in virtue of which each
particular thought passes over into another. And
when applied to life, it supplies a view which looks
upon each particular thing as belonging together
with all other things. Hegel saw in history a con-
tinual unfolding and growth, and not a mere suc-
cession of stable and fixed events.

It is this central thought of Hegelianism, which
stirred young Germany to action, Hegel himself, it
is true, arrived at different conclusions in his politi-
cal philosophy, and saw in the Bureaucratic State
the highest expression of the Spirit, but his younger
followers drew opposite conclusions from his own
philosophy. If history means growth and change,
then the old State institutions handed down from
Mediasval times cannot remain in their integrity, and,
consequently, a demand for changes was voiced by
young Germany, the followers of the great philoso-
pher.

A second factor in the intellectual unrest of Ger-
many at the time was the religious question. Hegel's
religious philosophy, like his political, gave rise to
controversies. The question arose: "Is religion
compatible with philosophy or not.?" This question
divided the Hegelian camp into two, the right and
left wings. The height of the conflict was reached
with the appearance of a book by David Friedrich

14 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

Strauss, The Life of Jesus, where the central figure
of Christianity is stripped of all its divine attire and
relegated to the sphere of mythology. This book
immediately became the center of a storm which
raised many bitter controversies. On the one hand,
it caused a strong defense of Christianity, and, on
the other, it gave rise to more and more extreme
ideas about religion. In the left camp, Christianity,
and with it all religion, was vigorously attacked, and
its foundations undermined.

But when the old religious ideals were being de-
throned, something had to be put in its place to
satisfy the craving of men for worship. It was then
that Feuerbach stepped forth with his idea of Man.
The salvation and elevation of Man is, according to
him, to become the religious ideal. Humanity should
take the place of Divinity. These ideas gave rise,
in the forties, to the Humanitarian movement, with
its cosmopolitan tendencies. But how really humani-
tarian the movement was, can be seen from the atti-
tude of Bauer, one of the leading humanitarians,
toward the emancipation of the Jews. He pub-
lished, in 1842, a pamphlet about the Judenfrage, in
which he vigorously opposes Jewish emancipation, on
the ground that the Jews, by adhering to their re-
ligion, excluded themselves from emancipation. The
words of Hess that "pure human nature," of which
the humanitarians boast, is nothing but "pure Teu-
tonic nature," characterize the real essence of their
humanitarianism.

A third element in the intellectual leaven of Ger-

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 15

many was the rise of the demand for social justice.
The growth of industry in European countries
brought to the front the glaring injustice done to
the exploited classes and set people thinking about
Society and its institutions. The resulting theories
were known as Socialism, Communism, and Anarch-
ism. They often conflicted with each other. Some
came to the conclusion that, in order to remedy the
evil, a strong socialization of all human forces is
necessary. Others preached extreme Individualism
and the removal of all control; and still others ex-
pounded a doctrine of moderate Individualism in
the form of Communism. Thus intellectual Ger-
many formed a motley of ideas. Liberalism, Human-
itarianism, Socialism and Anarchism, aU mingled into
a kaleidoscopic phenomenon of conceptions, where
diiferent intellectual currents crossed each other,
touched each other and diverged from each other.
They had, however, one thing in common, and that
was the striving toward the political liberation of
Germany.

In this whirlwind of ideas and tendencies, Hess
lived and acted. He reacted to aU of them, and these
various ideas are mirrored in his book Rome and Je-
rusalem. A general survey was necessary in order
to understand his main thoughts.

The unrest and the struggle going on in the gen-
eral German world was strongly reflected in the Jew-
ish world, and there accentuated by circumstances.
It worked havoc in the ranks of Jewry, and brought

16 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

about a disintegration of its vital forces. The move-
ment of enlightenment, started by Mendelssohn and
his group of intellectuals in the last part of the
eighteenth century, which had for its aim the har-
monization of Judaism with the modern rationalistic
spirit, finally culminated, in the second and third
decade of the nineteenth century, in a tremendous
impetus for assimilation.

The brief Napoleonic reign in Germany freed the
Jews from the shackles of the mediasval ages ; it re-
moved them from the walls of the Ghettos and placed
them, for a time, on an equal footing with the rest
of the inhabitants. During this brief period the en-
tire Jewish economic and educational position was
changed. The petty traders and laborers among
them diminished, and their place was taken by mer-
chants and professional men, many of whom were
admitted to high positions in social life and partici-
pated in German culture. After the War of Libera-
tion, which brought but little relief to the Jews, their
legal restrictions having been mostly restored, the
position of these half-emancipated Jews became pre-
carious. They refused to be forced back in the legal
and social Ghetto from which they had just emerged,
and, as a result, many sought refuge from their ab-
normal position in conversion.

There were, however, those who did not despair
entirely and hoped to continue, by means of organ-
ized effort, the struggle for emancipation and at the
same time to stem the tide of conversion. The re-
sult of these efforts was the Reform movement, which

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 17

took shape in the thirties and which reached its cli-
max in the following decades. To accomplish the
latter aim, namely, to bring Judaism in accord with
the progressive spirit of the age, these people thought
that all that was necessary was to spiritualize its
content, and to abolish as many ceremonies and laws
as possible. As for obtaining emancipation, it was
necessary, in their opinion, to abolish Jewish Nation-
alism and declare the Jews to be merely a religious
sect, and thus refute, once for all, the accusations of
the Germans of all stamps, whether reactionary or
liberal, that the Jews are an alien element.

Emancipation was obtained, though not by means
of Reform. It was achieved through the political
and social circumstances of the revolutionary year
1848. But assimilation was not stemmed. The ex-
treme spiritualization of Judaism of the radical re-
formers and the elimination of the National element,
brought the new type of Judaism within dangerous
approach to reformed Christianity, the line of de-
marcation between them becoming almost impercep-
tible. Many did not hesitate, therefore, to cross this
line and enjoy the social advantages which the cross-
ing afforded.

But in the innermost recesses of the Jewish soul
there smoldered yet a spark, that was finally kin-
dled into a flame, which helped to sustain Judaism
in these dangerous times and to supply it with a con-
tent. This was the creation of Jewish science. Jew-
ish science, which taught at least a part of the Jews
in Germany to respect and revere their glorious past,

18 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

aroused in their hearts the feeling of self-conscious-
ness and pride in their religion and nation, and thus
helped to partly stem the tide of total assimilation.
It is true, that in the beginning, Jewish science was
utilized by some of its greatest builders to justify
the inauguration of reform in Judaism, but it soon
assumed a more conservative tendency. Such men
as Rappoport, KrochmaJ, Graetz, Frankel and Luz-
zato turned it into more wholesome channels, which
finally conveyed strength and support to the totter-
ing Judaism of Germany and, with the help of mod-
ernized orthodoxy, checked, in the sixth decade of
the century, even the spread of Reform.

Hess responded to all these movements within
Jewry, and in his book an echo of all tendencies and
strivings is heard. In his Rome and Jerusalem will
be found a characteristic estimate of all these strug-
gling forces within Judaism at the time. He, how-
ever, in his enthusiastic manner, overestimates the
value of Jewish science for the National revival. It
did not fulfil his expectations. Jewish science, with
the exception of the writings of Krochmal and Luz-
zato, has not contributed much to National regen-
eration. It remains for it to atone in the future for
the unpardonable sin it committed in the past.

The Life of Hess

Moses Hess was bom in Bonn, Germany, on the
twenty-first of January, 1812. His father was a
wealthy merchant and thoroughly orthodox in his
opinions. On his mother's side, Hess descended from

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 19

a line of Rabbis and Jewish scholars. His early edu-
cation was imbued with the Jewish spirit and the re-
ligious zeal of his parents. At the age of nine, Hess
was given into the custody of his grandfather, his
parents having left Bonn for Cologne. The grand-
father was a pious Jew of the old type, a Rabbi by
degree, but not by profession, and by his conduct he
left a very deep impression upon the young Hess and
instilled in him the deep love for the Jewish people,
which finally found its expression in Rome and Je-
rusalem, Hess speaks of his grandfather in the most
glowing terms.

In 1830, at the age of eighteen, Hess entered the
Bonn University. It seems, however, that he never
received an academic degree, having left the Univer-
sity in the midst of his course of study. The Uni-
versities were at that time the center of the Liberal
and Radical movements and tendencies. Young Hess
was powerfully attracted by these tendencies, and
devoted himself with the entire force of his fiery soul
to the propagation of the Socialist movement.

This radical activity on the part of the young
Hess led finally to a break between him and his con-
servative father, and, as a result, Hess left Germany
for England. After a short stay, he went to Paris,
whence, having spent his money, he returned to Ger-
many, making his journey on foot, and was engaged
for a time as a teacher in the village near Metz.

A reconciliation was effected between father and
son, and for a short time Hess was employed in his
father's business. But commercial pursuits did not

20 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

harmonize with the spirit of the young enthusiast,
nor were the relations between him and his father
very cordial ; and, consequently, the war between the
two broke out anew. When Hess, in 1840, married
Sybme Pritsch, a Christian girl of questionable repu-
tation, the break between him and his father was
complete and the two never met again.

Hess, after giving up his business career, devoted
his entire energy to philosophical studies and social-
istic activity. In 1837 he published his first work,
entitled. The Sacred History of Humanity, by a
Young Spinozist. In this work, Hess develops his
Philosophy of History, which is, in its essence, a
combined product of Spinozism and Hegelianism.
This work was followed, in 1841, by a second vol-
ume. The European Triarchy, where he advocates
an alliance between England, France and Germany,
the three most civilized nations of Europe; the same
idea is repeated by him in his Rome and Jerusalem.

Hess was actively engaged, at the time, in the
propaganda of Socialism and became one of the
leaders of the radical movement. He was a contribu-
tor to all the Socialistic publications, especially the
Rhenische Zeitung, of whose editorial staff he seems
to have been a member. But such liberal publica-
tions were objectionable to the reactionary authori-
ties and were soon forbidden by order of the police.
The Socialists, together with the Radicals, were then
forced to publish their works and periodicals in
Switzerland. Such a periodical publication was Ein
V/nd Zwanzig Bogen aus der Schweitsi — all wprks

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 21

above twenty sheets were free from censorship —
where a long article by Hess, under the name The
Philosophy of Action, was published. This article
raised the philosophical standard of Hess in the eyes
of his feUow-workers. Hess endeavors, in this arti-
cle, to elaborate a system of philosophical Anarch-
ism, declaring that the individual and the concrete
is the only reality of the Idea, and vigorously de-
nouncing all abstract generalities. The fundamental
idea of the essay is, that the individual must have
absolute freedom of action. This outburst of Indi-
vidualism on the part of Hess, not only won him the
displeasure of the socialist leaders, such as Marx and
Engels, but did not harmonize with his own social
nature and tendencies ; he therefore modified his con-
ception of egoism and socialized it. The highest de-
velopment of the Ego, according to him, is when a
man recognizes social life as his own. A direct re-
sult of his new teaching was his vigorous participa-
tion in the Communistic movement. In 1845, Hess
engaged in propagating the Communistic idea and
founding societies devoted to its realization, an oc-
cupation which led Arnold Ruge to describe him as
"The Communist Rabbi Moses."

His communistic activity, however, was soon cur-
tailed. Hess, coming more and more under the in-
fluence of Marx, adopted his views and began to
preach the gospel of Economic Socialism. In his
articles published in the subsequent year 1846 in
Marx's Jahrbiiecher, he advocated class struggle
and declare? himself a champion of the proletariat,

22 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

Marx, however, could not forgive Hess for his en-
thusiasm and warmth, and often denounced him.
Even in the Comrnvmist Manifesto, he directed some
bitter shafts at him, calling him a dreamer and
phantasist.

In 1847, Hess went to Brussels, and for a time
contributed to the Deutsche Brussiler Zeitung,
From Brussels he went to Paris. Meanwhile, how-
ever, the Revolution of 1848 broke out and Hess
hastened to return to Germany, taking an active
part in the armed resistance of the people. The fol-
lowing year, when reaction set in, Hess, among
others, was condemned to death. For a time he wan-
dered about aimlessly, attempting to settle in Geneva
and Antwerp; but the Prussian government, demand-
ing his extradition, made his stay unsafe, and he
finally went, in 1853, to Paris, where he lived for the
greater part of his remaining days.

The sixth decade of the nineteenth century was a
period of reaction and conservatism in Germany.
The revolutionary movement had spent its force in
the attempted Revolution of 1848, and autocracy,
regaining its strength, ruled with a mailed fist,
though gloved in constitutional form. Many of the
former revolutionary and liberal leaders, now in ex-
ile, despaired of ever carrying out their plan of a
social change by means of revolution, and devoted
themselves to other pursuits. Among them was
Hess, who, during the eight years of his stay in
Paris, from 1852 to 1860, occupied himself with the
study of the physical and biological sciences, espe-

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 23

cially anatomy and anthropology. Arnold Ruge,
the German philosopher and liberal, who was living
in Paris at the time, scoffed at Hess's devotion to
science and his forsaking of the ideal, and accused
him of becoming an adherent of imperialism, but
Hess was not swayed by these strictures.

These studies mark the turning point in Hess's
mental attitude. Delving in Ethnology, Hess was
convinced that the doctrine of Cosmopolitanism,
which preaches the abolition of national landmarks
and the fusing of humanity into one motley mass,
has no scientific basis. He learned that Humanity
consists of a group of nations, each distinct in physi-
cal type and mental peculiarities, and that these dis-
tinctions are not artificial, but primal and inherent.
Hess then began to reflect about the fate and future
of his own nation, which he had never entirely for-
gotten, but, as he himself says, his energies were
temporarily diverted to what he at that time con-
sidered a greater and more important subject of at-
tention — the European Proletariat. The result of
these reflections was his Rome and Jerusalem. Hess
carried into his new occupation, the preaching of
Jewish Nationalism, the same fire and enthusiasm
which animated his socialistic writings and activities
and, naturally, the appearance of his book made a
strong impression upon his contemporaries.

Pa champion of the Jewish National movement,
Hess did not cease to be an ardent party socialist,
and in 1863 went back to Germany for a short time
and participated in propaganda work, under the di-

24 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

rection of Lasalle. But it seems that his old zeal
was gone, for he soon returned to Paris and devoted
himself once more to his scientific studies, and also
to Jewish studies. During the succeeding years he
contributed frequently to socialistic periodicals, and
also to Jewish publications, among which were the
Archives Israelites and Graetz's Monatsschrift fuer
das Wissenschaft des Judenthwms.

At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War,
Hess, as a Prussian subject, was exiled from Paris.
And yet, this act did not embitter him against
France, but, on the contrary, he grieved deeply at
France's defeat. To give vent to his feeling, he pub-
lished a book which he called The Defeated Nation,
in which he advocated an alliance of all nations
against Prussianized Germany. After peace was es-
tablished, he returned to Paris and to his scientific
studies. Through his constant wandering and travel
his health had become undermined and, after a few
years of quiet work, he died in 1875, at the age of
sixty-three. At his own request, he was buried in
the family plot at Dietz on the Rhine. His wife,
who survived him, published the first volume of his
Dynamic Matter, in 1877.

The Philosophy of Hess

' Hess is not a systematic thinkrr. He never en-
deavored to develop his view of the world and life on
the basis of fixed principles in logical sequence, but
presented them in rather confused form. Yet the
principles are there and have a direct relation to his

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 25

views on Nature, Life, History and Judaism. Hess,
as we have seen, wrote many works, but the latest of
his productions, Rome and Jenisdlem, in spite of its
modest size, constitutes his Magnwm OpiM. In it
we find a summary of his views on all grave questions
in their most perfected form. The ideas expressed
in it are valuable, not only as a foundation of the
philosophy of Jewish Nationalism, but also as a con-
tribution to human thought in general. With Hess,
Judaism is not an isolated phenomenon of civiliza-
tion, the expression of the spirit of a small people,
but the most important constituent of the spiritual
expression of Humanity. Hess raised Judaism to
the dignity of a world philosophy, which has for its
aim the elevation and perfection not only of the Jew-
ish people, but of the entire human genus. His view
of Judaism, however, is only a part of a general phi-
losophical conception of Nature and life, a system-
atic exposition of the principles of which will help to
elucidate it and enhance its value.

The fundamental principle of Hess's thought is
what he terms "the genetic view." It is based on the
teaching of Spinoza, of which he was a devoted fol-
lower. Hess, though influenced greatly by Hegel
and the post- Hegelian philosophy, especially by that
of Feuerbach, always remained a Spinozist, yet his
teaching extends far beyond that of Spinoza, and is
more adaptable to life, and more fruitful as a social
factor. 'According to his view, the world, in spite of
its multiplicity and variety of phases, is a unity.
There is no place in it for a dualism of matter and

26 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

spirit, or other divisions ; it is all one, — an undivided
whole; the multiplicity in the universe is only ap-
parent, the various unfoldings of the basic unity.
Behind this unity there is the all-embracing force
which unifies the phenomena of the universe — the
Creator or God. God is not outside of the world
but within it, its essence and substance. He, the
alt-unifying force, the Creator, expresses himself in
all multiple phenomena of Nature and life, and thus
creates them, making the entire world a created
one.

Hess's emphasis of creation gives to his philoso-
phy an entirely new aspect, far exceeding in impor-
tance that of Spinoza. Spinoza, though employing
the word creation, never conceived God as a real
Creator, but endorses the mechanical view of the
world, which sees in the universe a huge machine,
working according to fixed laws, without aim and
purpose. I Hess, on the contrary, protests bitterly
against this mechanical conception, and sees in the
world a constant tendency toward creation, namely,
the forming of things anew. The life of the world
is not a mere blind operation of forces, but a devel-
opment with a purpose and aim which will finally be
realized. This aim is the harmony of all antagonistic
elements, the reconciliation of all opposing forces,
and the final peaceful cooperation of all for perfec-
tion and development. In this conception of recon-
ciliation Hess shows the infiuence of Hegel's philos-
ophy or Synthesis, which sees in the world of thought
and life a constant process of opposition and recon-

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 27

ciliation; but he employed it to better advantage
than the master.

The creative force of the universe is a vital force,
and the entire universe a live being which is divided
into three life spheres : the cosmic, organic and social
or the human. There are no hard and fast lines sep-
arating them, but they are all parts of a great whole,
one creative force called them into being. The world
is all movement; there is nothing stable in it; all
things were formed anew. Hess does not believe in
the eternity of matter, nor in the constancy of atoms.
The atoms were created as all other things in this
world and are subject to growth and decay. Atoms
are only centers of gravity from which creation pro-
ceeds, and corresponding to them, in other spheres,
are the germs in the organic, and revelations of cre-
ative ideas in the social.

Hess believes that this genetic conception is the
real Jewish conception and points to the Biblical
theory of creation. He was certainly right in his
assertions. To look upon the world as a process of
becoming and upon the creative force as vital, is a
primary quality of Jewish thought and is best illus-
trated in Bergson. Comparing the view of Hess with
that of the bnlliant French-Jewish philosopher, we
are struck with the similarity. Bergson, like Hess,
struggles against the mechanical view of the world,
and teaches a creative evolution constantly forming
new productions, which are incalculable beforehand.
Like Hess, he teaches the unity of the vital force
which, ijhough dividing itself into different forms, re-

28 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

mains essentially one. There are undoubtedly dif-
ferences between the two, but the fundamentals are
the same with both of them ; and, from a practical
point of view, Hess's conception is far deeper and
more fertile. Hess applies his philosophic thought
to the social world, while Bergson remains in the
middle of the road.

On the basis of the principles laid down by him in
his view of the world, Hess constructed his philoso-
phy of history. History, which embraces the social
sphere of life is, according to him, not subordinate
to Nature but on a par with it ; it is dominated by
the same laws and permeated with the same unified
creative force. God reveals himself in history no less
than in Nature; in this, he reminds us of the first
Jewish national philosopher, Halevi,^ and there is a
divine plan in human affairs which is gradually un-
folding itself in time.

Hess, like all thinkers of his time, was influenced
in his conception of history by Hegel, whose princi-
ples he applied. History, like Nature, is a constant
development, and is, of course, dominated by law, yet
human freedom is preserved by the consciousness of
our action. The development of history goes on in
dialectic form, namely, forces opposing each other
in earlier historical epochs are ultimately reconciled
by a new synthetic epoch. Hess, viewing history as
a part of the universal scheme, sees in its develop-
ment an analogy to the development of Nature. In

1 See the writer's article on Halevi in The American Hebrew,
November 10, 1916.

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 29

the former, as in the latter, there are three periods:
rise, growth, and maturity, and there is also a cor-
responding similarity between the periods of these
two spheres, which he elaborates fancifully in the
tenth letter. The difference lies in this: that while
Nature has already entered upon the third phase of
its development, history is still striving toward it.
Hess employs, as the means of conveying his ideas,
the Biblical conception of Sabbath, which signifies
"rest" as well as "completion." Nature has already
attained its Sabbath, but History is yet to attain it.
The Sabbath of history, the period of maturity of
human development, is the Messianic era of the
Prophets. It is a time when all opposing and strug-
gling forces of the social sphere will be harmonized
and men will become morally free. But in order to
comprehend the full significance of Hess's historical
conception and his grand vision of the future, we
must understand his view of Society and its strivings.
In his youth, when, in response to the impulses of
his warin heart, he threw himself in the Socialist
movement in order to attempt to alleviate human
misery, Hess had no definite conception of human
Society. He was swayed too often by different mo-
tives. Social life to him was only a constant antag-
onism between the collective body of society as a
whole and its individual constituent members. Hu-
man history, he says somewhere in his writings, is
a struggle actuated by two motives, egoism and love.
In other words, there are two forces in Society, the
disintegrating one, egoism, and the cementing force

80 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

which binds one human being to the other, love.
Hess always retained his belief in love as a moral fac-
tor and opens his book Rome and Jerusalem with a
eulogy of it. As an escape from this eternal struggle,
he proposed Communism, a state of Society which
is bound to curb egoism and foster love. For a time,
he swayed to Individualism. Under the influence of
Feuerbach and Bauer, he wrote his PhMosophy of
Action, which advocated the freedom of the indi-
vidual. But, even then, he was not an egoist. Later,
again, under the influence of Marx, he became more
a class-struggle socialist. But in all these social
changes of his, Hess conceived Society only as an
aggregate of individuals.

It was only later, as a result of his anthropologi-
cal studies, that Hess came to the conclusion that
Society is not a mere abstract idea but is composed
of definite subdivisions known as races, each of which
has definite hereditary mental and physical traits
which are unchangeable. He then formed his or-
ganic conception of Society, entirely independently
of Spencer, which is the comer-stone of his social
and Jewish philosophy. Society, according to this
conception, is an organic body composed of organs,
the races. Each of these organs or races has a dif-
ferent function to perform for the benefit of the
whole. It is in the performance of this function that
the purpose of existence of the organ is realized;
and there exists in every organ a natural tendency
to perform the function.

Hess developed an elaborate historical scheme, ac-

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 31

cording to which every historical race had or has a
certain mission or function to perform. The impor-
tant places in this scheme are reserved by him for the
two antithetical nations, the Greeks and the Jews.
To the Greeks, the world presented multiplicity and
variety; to the Jews, unity; the former conceived
Nature and life as being, namely, as an accomplished
thing; the latter, as hecoming, as a thing constantly
being created. The Greeks, like Nature, which they
represented, had reached their aim in life and had,
therefore, disappeared from the world. The Jews,
on the other hand, representing History, the con-
stantly striving force, are stiU in existence, endeav-
oring to carry out their aim, to bring about in this
sphere of social life the historical Sabbath, namely,
the harmony of all social forces.

Judaism is a historical religion, a religion which
has for its field of operation the social sphere, and
which has discovered God in history, namely, the cre-
ative and reconciling principle in the life of human-
ity. The most characteristic point of Judaism, says
Hess, in one of his later articles,^ is that it placed be-
fore human history its highest goal, the realization
of universal law in Society. ^ Judaism, he says in an-
other place, is a humanitarian religion. According
to its teachings, the life of the human genus is an
organic process ; it began with the family of the in-
dividual and will finally end with a family of nations. .
This, then, is the Jewish mission or function in

2 Vie Einheit des Judenthwrns innerhcdb der heutigen Re-
Hgiosen Anarehie, in the Monatsgchrift, 1869.

32 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

Society, to realize the teachings of its great religion
in practical life. The Jewish nation belongs to the
creative organs of humanity. The Jews have taught
humanity true religion, a religion which is neither
materialistic nor spiritualistic, which has for its aim,
unlike Christianity, not the salvation of the individ-
ual in the other world, but the perfection of social
life in this world. And it is this function which they
have to discharge to create for humanity new social
values.

This function of Israel which, as a member of a
great organism of Society, he is to perform, cannot
be discharged anywhere else but in Palestine, where
he will again be a nation possessing his own soil, a
fundamental condition for living a regular normal
social life. The regeneration of Judaism and Jewry
is impossible in exile where it lacks the soil, the basis
of a political life, and where there exists constant
fear of disintegration. In exile, the Jews are un-
fruitful in all spheres, spiritually and economically.
Jewish economic life, no matter how prosperous it
may be in some countries, is abnormal; it lacks a
basis, the soil; the Jews, therefore, cannot be cre-
ators and are only middlemen. It is only in their
own land, where they will be able to produce new eco-
nomic and social values, that they will continue to
develop their greatest creation — Religion, which as
a moral force will exert great influence upon human-
ity and thus bring about the realization of social har-
mony. In his attempt to lay the foundations of a
positive view of Jewish life, Hess devoted considera-

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 33

ble space to negative criticism of existing concep-
tions of Jewish life. His bitterest attacks are di-
rected against the reformers and assimilators who
deny Jewish nationality and substitute in its place
an abstract indefinite teaching which they term,
"Mission." Hess believes in a Jewish mission, but
his mission is a natural function ba^ed on history
and social life, while theirs is only a product of
imagination and narrow vision. He attatjks their
ignorance of Jewish history and the misconception
of the nature of Judaism as well as of Society in
general, and ridicules their self-assumed role as the
teachers of the nations. Their Judaism is only an
empty shell, after the most important principles have
been abandoned by them. The Orthodox Jews have,
in his opinion, a much higher and truer conception
of Judaism. They have retained in their ceremonies
and prayers the kernel of Nationalism and the desire
for Jewish restoration. Yet even they do not satisfy
him entirely. Their inactivity and fossilized state
irritate him. But he is optimistic. He believes that
the spirit of regeneration will revive them and that
they will finally furnish the material for a great
National Movement. Hess also laid great hopes on
Jewish science and expected it to become a great
factor in the Jewish revival.

^ Hess developed a practical plan for the realiza-
tion of' his dream of Jewish restoration. He advo-
cated the colonization of Palestine and the founda-
tion of a Jewish Colonization Association. He
dreamed that Jews, having been settled on the road

34 TRANSLATOE'S INTRODUCTION

to India and China, will become the mediators be-
tween Asia and Europe. For political support, he
looked to his beloved France, the embodiment of free-
dom and the champion of oppressed nations. But he
also dreamed of a Jewish Congress, demanding the
support of the Powers for the purchase of Pales-
tine, a dream quite prophetic in view of recent de-
velopments. He also foresaw a political situation
resembling in its features the present state of affairs
created by the war ; he called it the last struggle be-
tween reaction and freedom. In some of his articles
there are strikingly modem features.

Some of the dreams of this great visionary have
partly come true. Let us gather confidence from the
words of this modem seer, and hope that the glori-
ous vision he foresaw for Israel will be realized in
the coming period of history.

M. W.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

FaoM the time that Innocent III ^ evolved the dia-
bolical plan to destroy the moral stamina of the
Jews, the bearers of Spanish culture to the world of
Christendom, by forcing them to wear a badge of
shame on their garments, until the audacious kid-
napping of a Jewish child from the house of his
parents, which occurred under the government of
Cardinal Antonelli, Papal Rome symbolizes to the
Jews an inexhaustible well of poison. It is only with
the drying-up of this source that Christian German
Anti-Semitism will die from lack of nourishment.

With the disappearance of the hostility of Chris-
tianity to culture, there ceases also its animosity to
Judaism ; with the liberation of the Eternal City on
the banks of the Tiber, begins the liberation of the
Eternal City on the slopes of Moriah ; the renaissance
of Italy heralds the rise of Judah.^ The orphaned

ilnnocent III, Pope from 1198 to 1216, was distinguished
for his cruel hatred toward the Jews. At his instigation, the
fourth Lateran Covincil adopted a Resolution urging the Chris-
tian Princes to force the Jews to wear a distinctive badge
on their garments. — Trajulator.

2 At the time when Hess wrote these lines, Italy, under the
leadership of Garibaldi, was struggling to wrest Rome from
the Papal government and annex it to the new unified King-
dom. The remarks in regard to Poland and Hungary are also
explained by the events of the time. — Translator.

35

36 AUTHOR'S PREFACE

children of Jerusalem will also participate in the
great regeneration of nations, in their awakening
from the lethargy of the Middle Ages, with its ter-
rible nightmares.

Springtime in the life of nations began with the
French Revolution. The year 1789 marks the Spring
equinox in the life of historical peoples. Resurrec-
tion of nations becomes a natural phenomenon at a
time when Greece and Rome are being regenerated.
Poland breathes the air of liberty anew and Hungary
is preparing itself for the final struggle of liberation.
Simultaneously, there is a movement of unrest among
the other subjected nations, which will ultimately cul-
minate in the rise of all the peoples oppressed both
by Asiatic barbarism and European civilization
against their masters, and, in the name of a higher
right, they will challenge the right of the master
nations to rule.

Among the nations believed to be dead and which,
when they become conscious of their historic mission,
wiU struggle for their national rights, is also Israel —
the nation which for two thousand years has defied
the storms of time, and in spite of having been tossed
by the currents of history to every part of the globe,
has always cast yearning glances toward Jerusalem
and is still directing its gaze thither. Fortified by
its racial instinct and by its cultural and historical
mission to unite all humanity in the name of the
Eternal Creator, this people has conserved its na-
tionality, in the form of its religion and united both
inseparably with the memories of its ancestral land.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE 37

No modern people, struggling for its own fatherland,
can deny the right of the Jewish people to its former
land, without at the same time undermining the jus-
tice of its own strivings.

But while the unprejudiced stranger considers the
problem of Jewish Nationalism a timely one, it ap-
pears to cultured German Jews unreasonable. For
it is in Germany that the difference between the Jew-
ish and German races is emphasized and used both by
the reactionary as well as by the liberal Anti-Semite
as a cloak for their Judfiophobia. It is there that the
existence of Jewish nationality is still employed as
an argument against the granting of practical and
civil rights to the Jews. And this in Germany, where
the Jews, from the time of Mendelssohn, in spite of
their participation in all cultural and moral move-
ments and their notable contribution to these fields,
and notwithstanding their continual disavowal of
Jewish national culture and their painstaking exer-
tions to Germanize themselves, have striven in vain
to obtain equal rights. But what brother did not
obtain from brother, what was not granted by man
to man, will be given by a people to a people, by a
nation to a nation. No nation can be indifferent to
the fact that in the coming European struggle for
liberty it may have another people as its friend or
foe. , I :

The voices that are heard from various parts of
the world, demanding the national regeneration of
Israel, find justification, first of all, in the Jewish
cult, in the national character of Judaism, and, even

38 AUTHOR'S PREFACE

more, in the general process of development of human-
ity and its obvious results, and finally, in the present
situation of human life.

In the series of letters that follow, the author has
emphasized primarily the first mentioned, namely,
the irmer justification. In doing this he has been
impelled to denounce the fantastic illusions of the
rationalists and philanthropists who deny the national
character of the Jewish religion, either on principle
or for material reasons. But he must protest as
vigorously against the dogmatic fanatics who, not
being able to develop our historic religion along
modem lines, have sought shelter under the wings
of ignorance, so as to avoid a struggle with the de-
ductions of science and criticism. He is thus pre-
paring the way for the coming peace, which is daily
breaking in upon the strife that is now raging be-
tween Reform and Orthodoxy.

Thanks to recent labors of 'Jewish scholars and the
portrayal of Jewish life by talented novelists and
poets, our national historical faith has found numer-
ous adherents even among those to whom but recently
enlightenment meant the falling away from Judaism.
The field of Jewish science is common to reformers
and to the orthodox alike. The inner motives, which
in the course of the series of letters demonstrate
the necessity and possibility of the national regener-
ation of Israel, are developed from the point of view
of modem Jewish science.

"The history of the Post-talmudic Period," says

AUTHOR'S PREFACE 39

the famous Jewish historian,^ "still possesses a na-
tional character; it is by no means merely a creed
or church history." "As the history of a people," he
continues, "our history is far from being a mere
chronicle of literary events or church history; why,
therefore, characterize it as such? The literature
and religious development, just as the tragic martyr-
dom, are only incidents in the life history of the
people, not its substance."

Historical criticism now takes the place of the
former method of rationalism employed by the Re-
formers, who wanted to separate the national from
the religious in Judaism. They did not recognize the
fountain of life, whence flowed our entire literature,
Talmudic as well as Biblical. So much did they
mistake the origin and cause of our literature that
they considered that great organic creation, the Tal-
mud, as representing merely the ever-changing re-
l suit of an attempt to accommodate the life of the
people to ever-changing conditions and environments.

Many who have emancipated themselves from dry
orthodoxy have recently manifested in their studies
a deepening conception of national Judaism; and
have thus brought about the banishment of that
superficial rationalism which was the cause of a grow-
ing indifference to things Jewish and which finally
led to a total severance from Judaism. But we find,
on the other hand, among the nationalistic ranks,
rabbis, such as I used to meet in my younger days,

8 Graetz, History of the Jews, German edition. Vol. 6, Intro-
duction, p. 3.

40 AUTHOR'S PREFACE

who do not fall behind the Reformers in science and
knowledge. The new seminaries, modeled after the
Breslau school, which have been founded in every
large Jewish center, ought to make it their aim to
bridge the gap between the nihilism of the Reformers,
which never learned anything, and the stanch con-
servatism of the orthodox, which never forgot any-
thing. A mild, reviving breeze blows from the
direction of such places where, a few years ago.
Orthodoxy, on the one hand, threatened to freeze
every movement, and Reform, on the other, as a de-
structive simoom, was about to burn up everything
and sweep all vestiges of the ancient religion be-
fore it.

The general history of social and political life, as
well as the national movement of modern nations,
will be drawn upon, so as to throw light upon the
undischarged function of Judaism. These sources
will be utilized, furthermore, to demonstrate that the
present political situation demands the establishment
of Jewish colonies at the Suez Canal and on the
banks of the Jordan. JAnd, finally, these illustrations
will be employed to point out the hitherto neglected
fact, that behind the problems of nationality and free-
dom there is a still deeper problem which cannot be
solved by mere phrases, namely, the race question,
which is as old as history itself and which must be
solved before attempting the solution of the political
and social problems.

In order to anticipate unjustifiable criticism of my
views by followers of the theory of German race

AUTHOR'S PREFACE 41

Chauvinism, as well as by those Jews whose philoso-
phy has not sufficiently progressed, I have thought
it necessary to collect the ideas bearing on the sub-
ject, which are scattered through the letters, into one
place, the Epilogue. The epilogue, as well as the
notes, is the right place for a more lengthy philo-
sophical discussion and scientific demonstration of the
principles which have been referred to somewhat su-
perficially in the letters themselves.

FIRST LETTER

The return home — Jewish women — The source of the
historical religion — FamMy love — Mater dolorosa.

; After an estrangement of twenty years, I am back
with my people. I have come to be one of them
again, to participate in the celebration of the holy
days, to share the memories and hopes of the nation,
to take part in the spiritual and intellectual warfare
going on within the House of Israel, on the one hand,
and between our people and the surrounding civil-
ized nations, on the other ; for though the Jews have
lived among the nations for almost two thousand
years, they cannot, after all, become a mere part of
the organic whole.

A thought which I believed to be forever buried
in my heart, has been revived in me anew. It is the
thought of my nationality, which is inseparably con-
nected with the ancestral heritage and the memories
of the Holy Land, the Eternal City, the birthplace
of the belief in the divine unity of life, as well as the
hope in the future brotherhood of men.

For a number of years this half-strangled thought
stirred within my breast and clamored for expres-
sion. I. lacked the strength to swerve suddenly from
my beaten track, which seemed to be so far from
the road of Judaism, to a new path which had un-

43

44 ROME AND JERUSALEM

folded itsdf before me in the hazy distance, in vague
and dim outline.

Is it mere chance, that whenever I stand at a new
turn in my life, there appears in my path an un-
happy woman, who imparts to me daring and cour-
age to travel the unknown road?

'Oh, how stupid are those who minimize the value
of woman's influence upon the development of Ju-
daism! Was it not said of the Jews, that they were
redeemed from Egypt because of the merit of the
pious women, and that the future redemption wiU
be brought about through them? ^

It was only when I saw you in anguish and sorrow
that my heart opened and the cover of my slumbering,
national feeling was thrown off. I have discovered
the fountain whence flows your belief in the eternity
of the spirit.

Your infinite soul-sorrow, expressed on the death
of one dear to you, brought about my decision to step
forth as a champion of the national renaissance of
our people. Such love which, like maternal love, flows
out of the very life-blood and yet is as pure as the
divine spirit; such infinite love for family can have
its seat only in a Jewish heart. And this love is the
natural source whence springs the higher, intellectual
love of God which, according to Spinoza, is the high-
est point to which the spirit can rise. Out of this
inexhaustible fountain of family love have the re-
deemers of humanity drawn their inspiration.

"In thee," says the divine genius of the Jewish
1 Cf. Note I at end of book.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 45

family, "shall all the families of the earth be
blessed." ^ Every Jew has within him the potential-
ity of a Messiah and every Jewess that of a Mater
dolorosa.

2 Cknesis xii, 3.

SECOND LETTER

Thoughts on death amd resurrection — Family tombs
— Kindred sovls — Jeimsh and Hindu saints —
Schopenhauer — The end of days — The Sabbath of
History.

Both sorrow and joy are contagious. You, my
friend, have imbued me with your thoughts on death
and resurrection. Heretofore, I have never visited
a cemetery, but now the place holds an attraction for
me. For the first time, since the untimely death of
my mother, I visited the place where she lies buried
and where later, during my absence from home, they
laid my father to rest. I had forgotten the prayer
usually read by Jews over the graves of their de-
parted, and in ignorance my lips murmured the pas-
sage from the second of the eighteen benedictions:
"Thou, O Lord, art mighty forever, thou restorest
the dead to life . . . ," when suddenly I noticed
a lone flower on a nearby grave. Mechanically I
picked it, carried it home with me and put it among
my papers. Only later, I learned whose earthly re-
mains rest beneath that mound. I knew then that
the treasure, as you named the flower, belongs to
you alone.

There are mystic relations between the living and
the dead, though the nature and character of the

46

ROME AND JERUSALEM 47

communion ■will forever remain an unsolved riddle.
More than your wonderful dreams, do my experiences
in the waking state confirm the influence that the
departed exert on the fate of those who remain
behind.

"The departed souls continue to live in spirit."

And therefore do I love also death. But must I then
hate life.'' Nay, I love life as well, only I love it in
the sense the greatest thinker of the centuries, Spi-
noza, loved it. The more humanitarian, the holier, the
more divine life is, the more does it appear that life
and death are of equal value and equal worth.

The Jews alone were able to rise to that spiritual
height, where life and death appear to be of equal
value ; and yet they never renounced life, but clung to
it tenaciously. Already eighteen hundred years ago, a
Jew, who has since become a redeemer among the gen-
tiles, found an extra-mundane point of support, from
which he wished to lift the world from its poles. ^

The great teachers of the knowledge of God were
always Jews. Our people not only created the no-
blest religion of the ancient world, a religion which is
destined to become the common property of the
entire civilized world, but continued to develop it,
keeping pace with the progress of the human spirit.
And this mission will remain with the Jews until the
end of days, i.e., until the time when, according to

1 See Note II at end of book. Hess alludes here to the
famous saying of Archimedes: "Give me a place to stand and
I will move the earth." — Translator.

48 ROME AND JERUSALEM

the promise of our Prophets, the world will be filled
with the knowledge of God. Tjie "end of days," so
often spoken of by the Prophets, is not to be under-
stood to mean, as some misinterpret it, the end of the
world, but it denotes the period when the develop-
ment and education of humanity wiU reach their high-
est point.

We are on the eve of the Sabbath of History and
should prepare for our last mission through a
thorough understanding of our historical religion.

We cannot understand a single word of the Holy
Scriptures, so long as we do not possess the point
of view of the genius of the Jewish nation which
produced these writings. Nothing is more foreign
to the spirit of Judaism than the idea of the salva-
tion of the individual which, according to the modem
conception, is the corner-stone of religion. Judaism
has never drawn any line of separation between the
individual and the family, the family and the nation,
the nation and humanity as a whole, humanity and
the cosmos, nor between creation and the Creator.
Judaism has no other dogma but the teaching of
the Unity. But this dogma is with Judaism, not a
mere fossilized and therefore barren belief, but a
living, continually recreating principle of knowledge.
Judaism is rooted in the love of the family; patriot-
ism and nationalism are the flowers of its spirit, and
the coming regenerated state of human Society will
be its ripe fruit.J Judaism would have shared the fate
of other religions which were fossilized through their
dogmas and which will finally disappear through the

ROME AND JERUSALEM 49

conflict with science, had it not been for the fact that
its religious teachings are the product of life. Juda-
ism is not a passive religion, but an active life factor,
which has coalesced with the national consciousness
into one organic whole. It is primarily the expres-
sion of a nationality whose history, for thousands of
years, coincides with the history of the development
of humanity ; and the Jews are a nation which, having
once acted as the leaven of the social world, is des-
tined to be resurrected with the rest of civilized
nations.

THIRD LETTER

Immortality — Rabbi Jochanan — Nachmamdes —
Messianic travails — Pater noster — Solidarity —
The call of France and the rwmhlvng of the reac-
tionaries.

You wonder why it is that there is no mention of
the doctrine of immortality in the Old Testament.
The Agadic interpretations of verses, as well as the
manipulations of certain Biblical passages by modern
Jewish and Christian exegetes, which tend to infer
from these verses and passages the belief in immor-
tality, do not satisfy you, and rightly so. You argue,
that if Moses and the Prophets had believed in a life
beyond the grave, in the Christian sense, they would
have stated the fact as explicitly as did the writers
of the New Testament, and would not have limited
reward and punishment to the life of this world alone.
I do not deny the fact that there is no mention of
immortality in the Old Testament. But if you re-
proach our Holy Scriptures for passing over such an
important doctrine in silence, you forget the view-
point of the genius of the Jewish nation which pro-
duced these Scriptures. You overlook the point of
view of our sacred history, namely, the genetic con-
ception which never separated the individual from
the race, the nation from humanity, and the created

60

ROME AND JERUSALEM 61

world from the Creator. You forget that the part
of the Sacred Scriptures wherein there is no mention
of immortality was written at a time when the Jew-
ish nation was still in existence, and therefore there
was no need of a belief in a resurrection. The Jewish
belief in immortality is inseparable from the national-
hvmianitarian Messianic idea. "It is only with the
coming of the Messiah and the establishing of the
Messianic kingdom that the purpose of creation will
be accomplished," says R. Jochanan, one of the lead-
ing Amoraim. In another statement, he adds, that
"aU the beautiful visions of the Prophets refer only
to the Messianic reign; but as regards the world to
come, its character and nature is known to God
alone." ^ Even in later Rabbinic Judaism, the Rabbis
never separated the idea of a future world from the
conception of the Messianic reign. Nachmanides in-
sists, in contradiction to Maimonides, upon the iden-
tity of Olom Habbo, "the world to come," with the
Messianic reign.

There was no necessity for Judaism to emphasize
the eternity and indestructibility of the spirit, for its
own history is nothing but the embodiment of this
idea. It was only when Judaism was threatened with
the possibility of national destruction, as early as
the end of the period of the first Temple, that along
with the idea of national destruction and the hope
of a national rebirth, there arose also the idea of the
immortality of the individual. The Prophet Isaiah

1 For the references to the sayings of R. Jochanan, see
Sanhedrin, 98b and 99a. — Translator.

52 ROME AND JERUSALEM

already draws a sharp line of distinction between
those nations which are doomed to eternal death and
Israel who is destined to be resurrected. The mo-
mentary death of Israel, the people of the spirit, is
only the preliminary stage for a future eternal life.
(Isa. xxvi, 14-19.)

Even in primitive Christianity, as long as it did
not separate itself completely from Judaism and the
historical cult, the Jewish conception still survived,
according to which resurrection, the "Kingdom of
Heaven," and "the world to come," are identical with
the Messianic age, the rebirth of the Jewish nation.
The coming of the reign of the spirit is heralded in
the Gospels, and also in the famous prayer of Jewish
origin, "Pater Noster," "Our Father," as a definite
event in the history of the Jews.

Even the latest expression of the Jewish genius
concerning life and death, namely, the teaching of
Spinoza, has nothing in common with the sickly atom-
istic conception of immortality, a conception which
dissolves the unity of life either in a spiritualistic
way or in a materialistic manner, and whose highest
religious and moral principle is the egoistic maxim,
"everyone for himself." No nation was ever so far
from this egoistic principle as was the Jewish people.
With the Jews, solidarity and social responsibility
were always the fundamental principles of life and
conduct.^

2 The solidarity of the Jews covers also the Shem, i.e., the
name of God. The Jewish law of solidarity: "All Israelites
are responsible for one another," is expressed also in the form

ROME AND JERUSALEM 63

In the Sayings of the Fathers, the rule of bourgeois
morality — "everyone for himself" — is severely con-
demned, and is declared to be a wicked rule of con-
duct.^ In the teaching of Spinoza, as in the teach-
ing of the Jewish saints, the individual is not treated
as a separate entity, but as a part of a whole. Ac-
cording to Spinoza, eternity does not begin with our
death, but always exists, is always present even as
God himself.

Very few, indeed, possess the noble spirit which
animated the Jewish saints. Most people are anxious
to secure as much immortality as possible for them-
selves, and for themselves alone. True it is, that the
"end of days," when the knowledge of God will fill
the earth, is still far off; yet we firmly believe that

of Kiddmsh Hashem, the Sanctification of God's name; i.e., the
Jew is urged to act in a more unselfish spirit than the law
requires, and even to sacrifice his own interests and person,
that he may thereby reflect glory upon the name of Judaism
and all other Jews.

3 Compare Note V at the end, where the opinion of the
Rabbis in the Sayings of the Fathers about the various stand-
ards of conduct in relation to "mine and thine" are given in
detail. In regard to the ordinary conception of common moral-
ity of "everyone for himself," it is said there: He who says;
"What is mine is mine and what is thine is thine, his is a
neutral character; — some say this is a character like that of
Sodom." (Ethics, V. 13.)

Another saying in Aboth, which is also found in Aboth d' B.
Nathan in an imperfect and contradictory form, admonishes
us that we should not be like servants who serve for the sake
of reward but like children who perform their duty because
of the reverence inspired in them by the majesty of the father
of all being. This teaching seems to be indifferent to the
doctrine of immortality. (Compare Epilogue, 3.)

54 ROME AND JERUSALEM

the time will come when the holy spirit of our nation
will become the' property of humanity and the earth
will become a grand temple wherein the spirit of
God will dwell. In the Bible, the reign of the spirit
is declared to be a future event, and even long after-
ward people relegated these prophetic visions to the
realm of the world to come — "(Ham Habbo" — and
did not connect them with the present life. Spinoza
was the first to conceive the reign of the spirit as an
existing thing, as a factor in the present life. It is
true, the reign of the spirit exists already, but only
as a germ of spiritual light. To develop this germ
to its fullest possibilities, so that it will create social
values, there labor, along with the Jewish people, the
most intellectual, moral and creative of modem na-
tions, namely, Germany, France and England. These
three nations have contributed greatly to the store of
civilization, each its distinctive share. Germany has
built the road to philosophy, France has thrown open
to all nations the way to social and political changes
and improvements, and has also blazed the path
of progress for the natural sciences. England, like
Germany, has followed, slowly but surely, her own
lead, namely, that of the progress and development
of industry.

The Jews felt long ago that the struggle for regen-
eration waged by the nations, together with France,
is their own cause, and have therefore everywhere
joined, enthusiastically and voluntarily, the ranks of
the followers of the political-social movements. "The
time has arrived," says a well-known French demo-

ROME AND JERUSALEM 65

crat to the Jews, "when you should think less of
others and more of yourselves, and commence to work
for your own regeneration.* The latter, however,
does not exclude the former. When I labor for the
regeneration of my own nation, I do not thereby re-
nounce my humanistic aspiration. The national move-
ment of the present day is only another step on the
road of progress which began with the French Revo-
lution. The French nation has, since the great Revo-
lution, been calling to the other nations for help.
But the nations have turned a deaf ear to the voice
from the distance and have lent a not unwilling ear
to the tumult of reaction in their own midst. To-day,
this roar deafens only the people in certain parts of
Germany, those who, by dint of political trickery,
are aroused to the pitch of enthusiasm for the kings
and war lords. But the other nations hear and
follow the call of France. The call has reached
also our ancient nation, and I would unite my voice
with that of France, that I may at least warn my
racial brothers in Germany against listening to the
loud noise of the reactionaries."

*See the extracts from the pamphlet: The New Oriental
Problem, quoted in the eleventh letter,
s See Epilogue, 6.

FOURTH LETTER

German Anti-Semitism — Patriotic romanticists and
philosophic book-dealers — Otto Wigamd — Berthold
Auerbach — Moleschott — Dr. Gallavardin — Re-
form and Jewish noses — A photographic picture
— Hebrew prayers — Patriotism — My grandfather
— Owr Mother Rachel — National sorrow — Th£
Black Sabbath,

It seems that German education is not compatible
with our Jewish national aspirations. Had I not once
lived in France, it would never have entered my mind
to interest myself withjfcfee^evival of Jewish nation-
ality. Our views and strivings are determined by
the social environment which surrounds us. Every
living, acting people, like every active individual, has
its special field. ~ Indeed, every man, every member
of the historical nations, is a political, or as we say
at present, a social animal ; yet within this sphere of
the common social world, there are special places
reserved by Nature for individuals according to their
particular calling. The specialty of the German of
the higher class, of course, is his interest in abstract
thought; and because he is too much of a universal
philosopher, it is difficult for him to be inspired by
national tendencies. "Its whole tendency," my former
publisher. Otto Wigand, once wrote to me, when I

66

ROME AND JERUSALEM 67

showed him an outline of a work on Jewish national
aspirations, "is contrary to my pure human nature."
The "pure human nature" of the Germans is, in
reality ,|the character of the pure German race, which
rises to the conception of humanity in theory only,
but in practice it has not succeeded in overcoming
the natural sympathies and antipathies of the race.
German antagonism to Jewish national aspiration
has a double origin, though the motives are reaUy
contrary to each other. The duplicity and contrari-
ety of the human personality, such as we can see
in the imion of the spiritual and the natural, the
theoretical and the practical sides, are in no other
nation so sharply marked in their points of opposi-
tion as in the German. Jewish national aspirations
are antagonistic to the theoretical cosmopolitan ten-
dencies of the Grerman. But in addition to this, the
German opposes Jewish national aspirations because
of his racial antipathy, from which even the noblest
Gertnans have not as yet emancipated themselves.
The publisher, whose "pure human" conscience re-
volted against publishing a book advocating the re-
vival of Jewish nationality, published books preaching
hatred to Jews and Judaism without the slightest
remorse, in spite of the fact that the motive of such
works is essentially opposed to the "pure hmnan
conscience." This contradictory action was due to
inborn racial antagonism to the Jews.* But the Grer-
man, it seems, has no clear conception of his racial
prejudices; he sees in his egoistic as well as in his
1 S«e Note III at end of book.

68 ROME AND JERUSALEM

spiritual endeavors, not German or Teutonic, but
"humanitarian tendencies"; and he does not know
that he follows the latter only in theory, while in
practice he clings to his egoistic ideas.

Progressive German Jews, also, seem to think that
they have sufficient reason for turning away from the
Jewish national movement. My dear old friend, Ber-
thold Auerbach, is disappointed with me, just as much
as my former publisher, though not on the ground of
"pure human conscience." He complains bitterly
about my attitude and finally exclaims: "Who ap-
pointed you as a prince and judge over us?" ^ It
seems that on account of the hatred which surrounds
him on all sides, the German Jew is determined to
estrange himself from Judaism as far as possible,
and endeavors even to deny his race. No reform of
the Jewish religion, however extreme, is radical
enough for the educated German Jew. But the en-
deavors are vain. Even conversion itself does not
relieve the Jew from the enormous pressure of Ger-
man Anti-Semitism. The German hates the Jewish
religion less than the race; he objects less to the
Jews' peculiar beliefs than to their peculiar noses.
Neither reform, nor conversion, nor emancipation

2 Exodus ii, 14. Auerbach gave me great satisfaction by
quoting the biblical verse in the original Hebrew. He recog-
nizes my right to express my Jewish sympathies and feelings,
to which he is not averse. But he claims that such an expres-
sion should bear more of the character of personal sentiment
and not be made public. Such action, according to him, is
dangerous and can become a "fire brand" in the hands of the
Anti-Semites.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 69

throw open to the Jew the gates of social life, hence
their anxiety to deny their racial descent. Molleschot,
in his Physiological Sketches (p. 261), tells how the
son of a converted Jew used to spend hours every
morning at the looking-glass, comb in hand, endeav-
oring to straighten his curly hair, so as to give it
a more Teutonic appearance. But as little as the
"radical" Reform movement — an appellation which
characterizes it so well, inasmuch as it lays the ax
at the root of Judaism and its national historical
cult — accomplished its aim, so little will the tendency
of some Jews to deny their racial descent fulfil their
purpose. Jewish noses cannot be reformed, and the
black, wavy hair of the Jews will not change through
conversion into blond, nor can its curves be straight-
ened out by constant combing. The Jewish race is
one of the primary races of mankind that has re-
tained its integrity, in spite of the continual change
of its climatic environment, and the Jewish type has
conserved its purity through the centuries.

On the western mountain slope which encloses the
City of the Dead, at Thebes, in Egypt, there still
exists the tomb of one of the ancient architects, who
supervised the construction of the king's buildings,
on which are depicted reliefs of all the works con-
structed under his direction. Here we can see how
the obelisks were erected, the sphinxes hewn out of
the rock, the palaces built, as well as how all the
preliminary labor was performed. Here are scenes
representing white Asiatic slaves making bricks,
many of which are piled up near the building, while

60 ROME AND JERUSALEM

other slaves are carrying stones away. At a little
distance from the group of laboring slaves stands the
overseer with raised whip in his hand. The tomb
was built, according to the inscription, about the time
of Moses, and in the reliefs of the Asiatic slaves there
is a resemblance to the present Jewish type.^ Later
Egyptian monuments, likewise, show Jewish reliefs
which strikingly resemble our modem Jews.

The Jewish race, which was so hard pressed and
almost destroyed by many nations of antiquity, would
have disappeared long ago, in the sea of the Indo-
Germanic nations, had it not been endowed with the
gift of retaining its peculiar type under all circum-
stances and of reproducing it. If Judaism owes its
immortality to the remarkable religious productivity
of the Jewish genius, this genius itself owes its ex-
istence to the fertility of the Jewish race. The words
of the Bible, "But the more they afflicted them, the
more they multiplied and the more they spread
abroad, and the land was filled with them," which were
written of the Jews in Egypt, are true of them also
during the third exile.

Of the predominance of the Jewish type in cases
of intermarriage with members of the Indo-Germanic
race, I can quote an example from my own experi-
ence. It is a well-known fact, that in unions between
members of the Mongolian with those of the Indo-
Germanic race, the Mongolian type predominates;
for example, the Russian nobles, who have little Mon-
golian blood in their veins, yet display in their physi-
i Sinai and Oolgotha, by P. A. Strauss, p. 69.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 61

ognomy Mongolian features even to the present day.*
Among my friends there is a Russian nobleman who,
like all the Russian boyars, betrays his mixed de-
scent, the Mongolian, by his features, and the Indo-
Germanic, by his fine intellect. This friend married
a Polish Jewess, by whom he had a number of sons,
who all possess Jewish feaitures in marked degree.
As you see, my esteemed friend, Jews and Jewesses
endeavor, in vain, to obliterate their descent through
conversion or intermarriage with the Indo-Germanic
and Mongolian races, for the Jewish type is inde-
structible. Nay more, the type is undeniable, even
in its most beautiful representatives, where it ap-
proaches the ancient Greek type, and even surpasses
it with its peculiar soul-expression. Hence I was not
surprised, when traveling through Antwerp, I showed
an artist the beautiful picture known to you, that he,
enthusiastically admiring the image that would have
done credit to a Phidias, exclaimed: "I will wager
that it is the picture of a Jewess."

The Jewish race, throughout the world, possesses
the ability to acclimatize itself more than all other
races. Just as in the native land of the Jews, Pal-
estine, there grow plants of the southern and of the
northern zones, so does this people, of the temperate
clime, thrive in all zones. A French physician, Dr.
GaUavardin, has demonstrated this physiological phe-

■* Russia was overrun In the thirteenth century by Mongolian
hordes and for a time was subject to one of the Tartar king-
doms established on its borders. During this time the two
races mingled freely, so that, as a result, the Mongolian type
is quite prevalent among the Russians. — Translator.

62 ROME AND JERUSALEM

nomenon by many statistical data, in his work, The
Position of the Jews in the World.

And just as it is impossible for me to entertain
any prejudice against my own race, which has played
such an important role in universal history and
which is destined for a still greater one in the future,
so it is impossible for me to show against the holy
language of our fathers the antipathy of those who
endeavor to eliminate Hebrew from Jewish life, and
even supersede it by German inscriptions in the ceme-
tery. I was always exalted by the Hebrew prayers.
I seem to hear in them an echo of fervent pleadings
and passionate entreaties, issuing from suffering
hearts of a thousand generations. Seldom do these
heart-stirring prayers fail to impress those who are
able to understand their meaning. The most touch-
ing point about these Hebrew prayers is, that they
are really an expression of the collective Jewish
spirit; they do not plead for the individual, but for
the entire Jewish race. The pious Jew is above all
a Jewish patriot. The "new" Jew, who denies the
existence of the Jewish nationality, is not onlj a
deserter in the religious sense, but is also a traitor
to his people, his race and even to his family. If it
were true that Jewish emancipation in exile is in-
compatible with Jewish nationality, then it were the
duty of the Jews to sacrifice the former for the sake
of the latter. This point, however, may need a more
elaborate explanation,' but that the Jew must be
above all a Jewish patriot, needs no proof to those
« See Note IV at end of book.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 63

who have received a Jewish education. Jewish patri-
otism is not a cloudy Germanic abstraction, which
dissolves itself in discussions about being and appear-
ance, realism and idealism, but a true, natural feel-
ing, the tangibility and simplicity of which require
no demonstration, nor can it be disposed of by a
demonstration to the contrary.

My grandfather once showed me some olives and
dates, and remarked, with beaming eyes, "These were
raised in Eretz Yisroel." Everything that reminds
the pious Jew of Palestine is as dear to him as the
sacred relics of his ancestral house. It is customary
that a bag containing earth from the Holy Land is
put into the grave of every pious Jew. In this prac-
tice, however, as well as in the ritualistic use of the
citron and palm branch which, like the bag of earth,
are imported from Palestine at great expense, there
is something more than the mere carrying out of a
religious precept or the promptings of superstitious
belief. All feast and fast days of the Jews, their
deep piety and reverence for tradition, which almost
apotheosizes everything Hebraic, 'nay even the entire
Jewish cult, aU have their origin in the patriotism
of the Jewish nation. The Jewish "reformers," who
have emancipated themselves from Jewish nationality,
understand this quite well; they are therefore very
careful in expressing their heartfelt opinions. They
find it more comfortable to take refuge in the false-
hood of the dualistic theory, which sees in every
natural and simple feeling, as well as in patriotism,
a double essence — an ideal and a real. This dualistic

64 ROME AND JERUSALEM

theory is very useful, as it can be adjusted at will,
either to the one point of view or to the other.

This false theory is of recent German invention and
need not be taken seriously. Spinoza conceived Ju-
daism to be grounded in Nationalism, and held that
the restoration of the Jewish kingdom depends en-
tirely upon the will and courage of the Jewish peo-
ple. Even the rationalistic Mendelssohn did not know
of a cosmopolitan Judaism. It is only in modern
times that, for the purposes of obtaining equal rights,
some German Jews denied the existence of Jewish
nationality. Moreover, they have convinced them-
selves, contrary to the fact that the further existence
of Judaism will not at aU be threatened by the elim-
ination of its innermost essence.

True, my dear friend, it is a fact which may even
come to the attention of our German Jewish re-
formers, that the Jewish religion is, above all, Jew-
ish patriotism. I always recall, with deep emotion,
the scenes that I lived through when a child, at the
house of my grandfather at Bonn, on the fast-day
commemorating the destruction of Jerusalem. On
the first day of the month of Ab, which is the first
of the nine days preceding the eventful day, the
sorrow which had been manifested since the beginning
of the "three weeks," assumed a more perceptible
form. Even the Sabbath day lost its festive charac-
ter during these days of national mourning, and was
named "the black Sabbath." My pious grandfather
was one of those revered scholars who, though not
using the Torah as a means of subsistence, yet pos-

ROME AND JERUSALEM 66

sessed the title and knowledge of a rabbi. Every
evening, at the close of his business day, he spent
several hours in studying the Talmud and its com-
mentaries. But in the "nine days" this study was
interrupted, and instead he read with his grandchil-
dren the stories and legends concerning the exile of
the Jews from Jerusalem. The tears fell upon the
snow-white beard of the stem old man as he read
those stories, and we -children, too, would cry and
sob. I remember, especially, one particular passage
which impressed us both deeply. It runs as follows :

"When the children of Israel were led into captiv^
ity by the soldiers of Nebuchadnezzar, their road lay
past the grave of our Mother Rachel. As they ap-
proached the grave, a bitter wailing was heard. It
was the voice of Rachel, weeping at the fate of her
unhappy children." ®

You can now discern clearly the source of the
Jewish belief in immortality ; it is the product of our
remarkable family love. Our immortality extends
back into the past as far as the Patriarchs, and in
the future to Messiah's reign. It is the Jewish con-
ception of the family which gave rise to the vivid
belief in the continuity of the spirit in human his-
tory. This belief, which is one of the fairest blos-
soms of Judaism, the roots of which are to be found
in Jewish family love and the trunk in Jewish patri-
otism, has, in the course of ages, shrunk to the belief
in the atomistic immortality of the individual soul;
and thus, torn from its roots and trunk, has withered

6 Jeremiah xxxi, 14.

66 ROME AND JERUSALEM

and decayed. It is only in the Jewish conception of
the family that the former living belief is still re-
tained. When modem dualism of spirit and matter,
the result of the separation of Christianity from
Judaism, had found its highest expression in the
works of the last Christian philosopher, Descartes,
and had threatened to kill all unity of life, there
arose again out of Judaism the belief in the existence
of one eternal force in Nature and history. This
belief acted as a bulwark against spiritual egoism, on
the one hand, and materialistic individualism on the
other.'^ Just as Christian dualism received its mortal
blow from the teachings of Spinoza, so does the ex-
istence of the ancient Jewish people, with its model
family life, act as an antidote against this disease
of dualism in practical life. Even to-day the whole-
some influence of the Jewish family life is noticeable
in literature, art and science. How much greater will
that influence be when once again we create history
and literature, when once more the Torah will go
forth from Zion and the Word of the Lord from
Jerusalem.'' ^

7 The monistic teacliing of Spinoza is here referred to by
Hess. — Translator.

8Micali iv, 1; Isaiah ii, 2. "But in the last days it shall
come to pass that .... the Law shall go forth from Zion,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." It is an old
prophecy, repeated in identical words by various prophets,
the echo of which reverberates throughout our entire history.

FIFTH LETTER

Retrospect — The Damascus Affair — A cry of cm-
gmsh — Ma/mserbilbvl, i.e.. Blood Accusation —
Hep, Hep — The escape into France — Arnold Ruge
— Napoleon — An honest German — Teutomamacs
— Jefferson — Fatherlands and Sovereigns — Ubi
bene ibi Patria — The Jewish incognito — The re-
ligion of death — Raise your standard high, my
people.

Do I seriously believe in the redemption from ex-
ile? You ask this question, and also remind me that
I have already expressed myself in my two earlier
works, The Sacred History of Humanity and The
Triarchy of Europe, as a believer in the fulfilment
of the Messianic hope. You are certainly going far
afield, esteemed friend, in holding me responsible not
only for my present opinions, but also for those ex-
pressed long ago. Nevertheless, you are right, and
I assume full responsibility for my ideas. But in or-
der not to stray too far from the thought nearest to
my heart into my own personal history, I will relate
only a few of the most characteristic episodes of my
past, which will elucidate my present attitude toward
the national question.

Twenty years ago, when an absurd and false accu-
67

68 ROME AND JERUSALEM

sation against the Jews was imported into Europe
from Damascus,* it evoked in the hearts of the Jews
a bitter feeling of agony. Then it dawned upon me
for the first time, in the midst of my socialistic activ-
ities, that I belong to my unfortunate, slandered,
despised and dispersed people. And already, then,
though I was greatly estranged from Judaism, I
wanted to express my Jewish patriotic sentiment in
a cry of anguish, but it was unfortunately immedi-
ately stifled in my heart by a greater pain which the
suffering of the European Proletariat evoked in me.
With other nations, there is strife only among the
various parties, but the Germans clash even when
they belong to the same party. The members of my
own party have made me loathe the aspirations of
the Germans, and by their actions caused me to go
into exile several years before the triumphant
reaction changed it from a voluntary act into an
involuntary one. Only a short time after the Feb-
ruary revolution, I went to France and there I
learned to know the people which, in the present cen-
tury, is the foremost champion of social liberty. If
this people submits at present to the iron dictator-
ship of kinghood, it is because the Emperor is true

1 This is the well-known ritual murder case of Damascus,
usually referred to as the Damascus affair, of 1840. The num-
ber of accused Jews, as well as the inquisitorial methods ap-
plied in extorting a Confession, attracted the attention of the
leading Jews of Europe, including Sir Moses Montefiore and
Isaac Cremieux, through whose efforts the Government of
France and England Anally intervened and obtained the re-
lease of the accused. — Translator.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 69

to his revolutionary descent,^ not in word alone, but
also in deed. The moment dynastic interests conflict
with the aspirations and strivings of the French
people, kinghood will disappear from the soil of
France.

After the coup d'etat of the reaction,^ I withdrew
from politics and devoted myself exclusively to na-
tural sciences. Old Dr. Arnold Ruge, a follower of
the Young Hegelians,* was much shocked at my occu-
pation, which he termed materialism ; he could never
forgive the "Communist Rabbi Moses" for his heresy
in forsaking the "ideal." He hinted frequently, in
his lectures at the German Museum, that this scien-
tific materialism is in reality only Imperialism, but
not of the German-Barbarossa type,^ but only of the
Romance-Bonapartistic stamp. What relation there
is between the study of the natural sciences and Bona-
partism, the old Ruge never explained clearly. Mean-
while, ever since the beginning of the Italian War of

2 The Emperor of France at the time was Napoleon III, the
nephew of Napoleon. — Translator.

3 This refers to the crushing of the popular revolution in
Germany by Prussia, in the year 1849. — Translator.

* Young Hegelianism is the name given to the radical inter-
pretation of Hegel's philosophy. Its followers were mostly
revolutionaries and socialists. Ruge was one of its principal
lesideTS.— Translator.

s Frederick Barbarossa was Emperor of Germany from 11S2
to 1189. His reign was marked by brilliancy, power and iron-
handed ruling. His strong personality left a. lasting impres-
sion upon the mind of the German people, so that he became
the hero of a number of legends. He represents, therefore,
to the Grerman, the Ideal type of a strong-handed Emperor. —
Translator.

70 ROME AND JERUSALEM

Liberation, I discovered a real and strong relation-
ship between my ethnological studies and the modem
national movement, which received such a strong
impetus since the war. I will, on a later occasion,
relate to you some of the conclusions reached through
these studies. Let it suffice for the present, to say
that these studies convinced me of the inevitable ulti-
mate disappearance of any particular race dominance
and the necessary regeneration of all oppressed peo-
ples. First of all, it was my own Jewish people who,
since that time, began to interest me and enchant me
more and more. Images of my unfortunate brethren
who surrounded me in my youth haunted my thoughts,
and the long-suppressed feelings burst forth with
fresh vigor. The pain and agony which, during the
Damascus affair, was only a transient feeling, became
now a dominating trait of my character and a lasting
mood of my soul. No more did I seek to suppress
the voice of my Jewish consciousness, but on the con-
trary, I carefully followed up its traces and was
pleasantly surprised when I found, in my old manu-
scripts, a passage anticipating my present-day Jew-
ish aspirations.

The following passage was written by me in the
year 1840, during the time of the above-mentioned
Damascus affair:

"The way and manner in which the persecution of
the Jews in Europe, and even in enlightened Germany,
is looked upon, must necessarily cause a new point
of departure in Jewish life. This tendency demon-
strates quite clearly that in spite of the degree of

ROME AND JERUSALEM 71

education to which the Occidental Jews have attained,
there still exists a barrier between them and the sur-
rounding nations, almost as formidable as in the days
of religious fanaticism. Those of our brethren who,
for purposes of obtaining emancipation, endeavor to
persuade themselves, as well as others, that modern
Jews possess no trace of a national feeling, have
really lost their heads. ^ These men do not understand
how it is possible that such a stupid, mediseval legend,
which was only too well known to our forefathers un-
der the name of Mmnserbilbul, should be given cre-
dence, even for a moment, in Nineteenth Century Eu-
rope. To our educated German Jews, the feeling of
hatred toward the Jews displayed by the Germans
has always remained an unsolved puzzle. Was not
the entire effort of the German Jews, since the days
of Mendelssohn, directed toward becoming wholly
Germanized, to thinking and feeling as Germans.''
Have they not striven carefully to eradicate every

6 The Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthwmi, which is other-
wise a progressive publication, complained bitterly at the time.
"Europe," says this worthy publication, in one of its issues,
"has spared the followers of the religion of Israel neither pain,
nor tears, nor bitterness." Were the Jews only followers of a
certain religious denomination, like the others, then it were
really inconceivable that Europe, and especially Germany,
where the Jews have participated in every cultural activi^,
"should spare the followers of the Israelitlc confession neither
pain, nor tears, nor bitterness." The solution of the problem,
however, consists in the fact that the Jews are something more
than mere "followers of a religion," namely, they are a race
brotherhood, a nation, one which, unfortunately, whose existence
is denied by Its own children and which every street loafer
considers it his duty to despise as long as it is homeless.

72 ROME AND JERUSALEM

trace of their ancient nationality? Have they not
fought in the "War of Liberation"? Were they not
Teutomaniacs and French devourers? Did we not
chant but yesterday with Nicolas Becker, "They
shall not possess it, the free German Rhine"? Did
I myself not commit the unpardonable stupidity of
sending a musical composition of this "German Mar-
seillaise" to the author of this song?

And yet I had to feel, in a personal way, the same
disappointment that German Jewry in general expe-
rienced after it had given repeated demonstration of
its patriotic enthusiasm. I also had to experience
the sad fact that the German to whom I sent my
manuscript, glowing with patriotic emotion, not
only responded to it in any icy tone, but as if to
fill the cup of bitterness to the brim, wrote on the
other side of his letter, in a disguised script, the
words: "You are a Jew." I forgot, then, that the
Germans, after the War of Liberation, not only dis-
criminated against the Jews, their erstwhile comrades
in arms against the French, but even persecuted them
with the frequent cries of Hep, Hep. I, on the other
hand, took Becker's Hep, Hep, as a personal insult,
and accordingly wrote him a letter, not in a disguised
script, making a few unpleasant remarks, which this
honest German, who most likely felt ashamed of his
rudeness, passed over in silence. To-day I could have
apologized to this German poet, for, as I see clearly
now, it was by no means intended as a personal in-
sult, [jt is impossible for any man to be at the same
time a Teutomaniac and a friend of the Jews, just

ROME AND JERUSALEM 78

as it is impossible to love, simultaneously, the German
military rule and German democracy. The real Teu-
tomaniacs of the Arndt and Jahn type will always
be honest, reactionary conservatives. The Teuto-
maniac, in his love of the Fatherland, loves not the
State but the race dominance. How, then, can he
conceive the granting of equal rights to other races
than the dominant one, when equality is still a Utopia
for the large masses of Germany?

The sympathetic Frenchman assimilates with irre-
sistible attraction every foreign race element. Even
the Jew is here a Frenchman. Jefferson said long
ago, at the time of the American Revolution, that
every man has two fatherlands, first his own and then
France. The German, on the other hand, is not at
aU anxious to assimilate any foreign elements, and
would be perfectly happy if he could possess all his
fatherlands and dominions for himself. He lacks
the primary condition of every chemical assimilative
process, namely, warmth.

As long as the Jew submitted in silence to perse-
cution and disgrace, considering it as a punishment
of God, all the time confidently hoping for the future
restoration of his nation, his pride was not impaired.
His only care was to enable his race to reach that
glorious future which would amply recompense it
for all the suffering it had undergone in the past,
when God will mete out punishment to the persecutors
and enemies of Israel. Our enlightened Jews, however,
possess this strong belief and vigorous hope no more.
What good is emancipation to. them? Of what avail

74 ROME AND JERUSALEM

is it that here and there a Jew rises to high office,
when to the name "Jew" there is attached a stigma
which every obscure journalist, every stupid fellow,
can safely turn to account?

As long as the Jew endeavors to deny his nation-
ality, while at the same time he is unable to deny his
own individual existence, as long as he is unwilling
to acknowledge that he belongs to that unfortunate
and persecuted people, his false position must daily
become more intolerable. Wherefore the illusion?
The European nations have always considered the
existence of the Jews in their midst as an anomaly.
We shall always remain strangers among the nations.
They may tolerate us and even grant us emancipation,
but they will never respect us as long as we place
the principle ubi bene ibi patria above our own great
national memories. Though religious fanaticism may
cease to operate as a factor in the hatred against the
Jews in civUized countries, yet in spite of enlighten-
ment and emancipation, the Jew in exile who denies
his nationality will never earn the respect of the
nations among whom he dwells. He may become
a naturalized citizen, but he will never be able to
convince the gentiles of his total separation from his
own nationality. It is not the old-type, pious Jew,
who would rather suffer than deny his nationality,
that is most despised, but the modem Jew who, like
the German outcasts in foreign countries, denies his
nationality, while the hand of fate presses heavUy
upon his own people. ' The beautiful phrases about
humanity and enlightenment which he employs as a

ROME AND JERUSALEM 76

cloak to hide his treason, his fear of being identified
with his unfortunate brethren, will ultimately not pro-
tect him from the judgment of public opinion. In
vain does the enlightened Jew hide behind his geo-
graphical and philosophical alibi. It is of no avail.
Mask yourself a thousand times over, change your
name, religion and character, travel throughout the
world incognito, so that people may not recognize the
Jew in you ; yet every insult to the Jewish name will
strike you, even more than the pious man who is
permeated with the spirit of Jewish solidarity and
who fights for the honor of the Jewish name.

Such, my friend, were my thoughts then, when I
was actively engaged on behalf of the European Pro-
letariat, My Messianic belief was, at that time, the
same that I profess at present, namely, the belief in
the regeneration of the historical civilized nations,
which will be accomplished only by raising the op-
pressed nations to the level of the mighty and domi-
nant ones. Now, as at the time I wrote my earlier
works, I still believe that Christianity was a step for-
ward on the road toward the goal of humanity, which
the Jewish prophets termed the Messianic age. To-
day, as ever, I still believe that the present great
epoch in universal history had its first manifestation,
at least in the history of the human spirit, in the
teachings of Spinoza, However, I never believed, nor
have I ever asserted, that Christianity is more than
a mere episode in the sacred history of humanity,
nor even that this epoch of sacredness closed with
Spinoza, I have never doubted that we at present

76 ROME AND JERUSALEM

sigh and strive for a redemption which Christianity
never dreamed of, nor could ever supply. It is true
that Christianity shed a certain glow during the dark
ages of history, after the sun of ancient civilization
had set forever ; but its light only revealed the graves
of the nations of antiquity. Christianity is, after all,
a religion of death, the function of which ceased the
moment the nations reawakened into life. The history
of the European nations for the last three hundred
years amply illustrates the truth of this dictum ; but
I will restrict myself to calling your attention to the
events transpiring at present in Italy. On the ruins
of Christian Rome there rises the regenerated Italian
people. An influence similar to that of Christianity
is exerted by Islam in the East. Both religions teach
resignation and submission, and Turkey follows the
same policy in regard to Palestine that Austria ex-
ercises in Italy. / Christianity and Islam are both only
inscriptions on the tombstones which barbaric op-
pression erected upon the grave of weaker peoples.
But the soldiers of civilization, the French, are grad-
ually sweeping away the dominance of the barbarians ;
and with their strong Herculean arms will roll off
the tombstones from the graves of the supposedly
dead peoples and the nations will reawaken once more.
In those countries which form a dividing line be-
tween the Occident and the Orient, namely, Russia,
Poland, Prussia, Austria, and Turkey, there live mill-
ions of our brethren who earnestly believe in the res-
toration of the Jewish kingdom and pray for it fer-
vently in their daily services. These Jews have pre-

ROME AND JERUSALEM 77

served, by their belief in Jewish nationality, the very
kernel of Judaism in a more faithful manner than
have our Occidental Jews. The latter have endeav-
ored to revive much of our religion, but not the great
hope which created our faith and preserved it through
all storms of time, namely, the hope of the restora-
tion of Jewish nationality. To those millions of my
brethren I turn and exclaim, "Carry thy standard
high, oh my people!" The Jewish nation still pre^
serves the fruitful seed of life, which, like the grains
of com found in the graves of Egyptian mummies,
though buried for thousands of years, have never lost
their power of productivity. The moment the rigid
form in which it is enclosed is shattered, the seed,
placed in the fertile soil of the present environment
and given air and light, will strike root and prosper.
The rigid forms of orthodoxy, the existence of
which was justified before the century of rebirth, will
naturally, through the productive power of the na-
tional idea and the historical culty relax and become
fertile. It is only with the national rebirth that the
religious genius of the Jews, like the giant of legend
touching mother earth, will be endowed with new
strength and again be reinspired with the prophetic
spirit. No aspirant for enlightenment, not even a
Mendelssohn, has so far succeeded in crushing the
hard shell with which Rabbinism has encrusted Juda-
ism without, at the same time, destroying the national
ideal in its innermost essence.

SIXTH LETTER

The noble representatives of the Gernum spirit —
Patriotic Jews — The historian Graetz — Mercier's
Essai sur la Litterature Jvive — Autumn and
Spring equmoxes of umkiersal history and its
storing — Sabbatai Zevi — Chaddvm — Natural amd
historical religion — The Jewish Mother — Victor
Hugo — Boeme, Baruch, Itzig.

You think my judgment in regard to the relation
of the Germans to our brethren, as well as of the
progressive German Jews to the Jewish people, too
severe and dogmatic. You say that there are many
noble spirits among the Germans who have banished
from their hearts every trace of race prejudice and
are permeated with the spirit of justice and human-
ity. And as for the progressive Jews, you think that
many of them have always displayed a fine spirit of
self-sacrifice when the honor of their religion or the
welfare of their brethren called for it ; and that those
noble spirits came principally from the ranks of those
who distinguished themselves in the field of science,
or commerce, or industry, and thus acquired high
positions in society. To these just strictures I will-
ingly subscribe, for I admit that my judgment was
too general in its character, and it can only be justi-
fied by the fact that it was written under the infiu-

78

ROME AND JERUSALEM 79

ence of the Damascus aJffair. To-day I would hesi-
tate very much before subscribing to it. It cannot
enter my mind, at present, to deny the Teutonic race,
and especially the German people, whose mental power
I esteem so highly, the ability to rise, by means of
progress, above race prejudice. The Grerman spirit
has other representatives than patriotic Romanticists
and philosophic book-dealers. A nation that produced
men like Lessing, Herder, Schiller, Hegel, Humboldt
and many more champions of humanity, must cer-
tainly possess the ability to rise to the heights of
spirituality and idealism.

It occurs to me, in connection with what was said
before, to relate a story, which will demonstrate the
ability of the German spirit to overcome race preju-
dice. It was told to me by Ludwig Wihl. You have
certainly heard of Hecker, who played such an im-
portant role in the political affairs of Baden in the
forties, and even as late as the famous revolutionary
year, 1848. A pure German, of noblest birth, he
began to attract attention in Baden by his much-
heralded liberalism, immediately after the year of the
Damascus affair. But do you know against which
of the "hereditary enemies" this knight of German
liberalism directed his attacks ? Against the French,
you will say.? No, this hereditary enemy was rather
harmless at the time, and under the leadership of
Guizot and Louis Philippe. Was it against the Rus-
sians? Not against them. The hereditary enemy,
in the attack against which Hecker won his spurs,
was none other than the terrible and mighty people,

80 ROME AND JERUSALEM

the Jews. Hecker published a series of anonymous
articles in the Frankfurter Journal against the eman-
cipation of the Jews. A few years afterward it was
this same Hecker who addressed a memorial, on be-
half of Baden, to the Berlin Landtag of the Con-
federacy, favoring the emancipation of the Jews.
And when people reproached him for his former op-
position to the Jews, he openly confessed, that for a
long time he had been unable to overcome his an-
tipathy to the Jews, but that finally the principle of
justice and humanity had triumphed in him.

The democrats of 1848 undoubtedly fully demon-
strated their superiority over the demagogues of the
"War of Liberation," the Romantic lads of the Jahn
and Arndt type, whom they left far behind on the
road of progress. And yet, on the basis of my long
experience, I feel inclined to assert that Germany as
a whole, in spite of its collective intellectuality, is in
its practical social life far behind the rest of the
civilized nations of Europe.; The race war must first
be fought out and definitely settled before social and
humane ideas become part and parcel of the German
people, as was the case with the Romance peoples
which, after a long historical process, finally defeated
race antagonism.

Willing as I am to correct my judgment in regard
to German Anti-Semitism, I am still more willing to
alter my former opinion, in accordance with your
strictures, of our progressive Occidental Jews, and
especially those of Germany, Of late there is to be
observed in Judaism a wholesome spirit of reaction

ROME AND JERUSALEM 81

against the once dominating tendency of cosmopoli-
tan philanthropy, that vague form of humanity
which, as Jean Jacques Rousseau aptly remarked,
professes to love men in general, so as not to be
burdened with the immediate duties of benevolence to
the individual. Signs of endeavor to introduce into
Judaism a more healthy and natural spirit, I notice
everywhere: in America, where new Jewish communi-
ties are founded and synagogues built every year; in
France, where an attempt was made to found an
Alliance Israelite Umverselle, which may become an
important factor in Jewish life, provided it be ani-
mated by a thorough Jewish national spirit; in the
German and French literatures, where writers like
Kompert, Strauben, WeiU and Bernstein have por-
trayed Jewish life faithfully and beautifully, and with
no small measure of success. But most of all is this
tendency to regeneration prominent in the literature
devoted to the science of Judaism, which, since the
publication of the epoch-making History of the Jews,
by Graetz, has developed such force that it will soon
be able to overcome the nebulous Christianizing spir-
itualism of the assimilators.

StiU earlier, Gabriel Riesser, one of our most pro-
gressive German Jews, had the courage to name his
magazine, devoted to the interests of our political
and civil rights. The Jew.^ Dr. Ludwig Philipson,
also, did not hesitate to call his spiritual child by the
name Israel. Again, among the lyric poets, we have
Ludwig Wihl, who uses his muse to sing of the great
* See Note IV at end of book.

82 ROME AND JERUSALEM

memories of our immortal nation. It is Certainly a
sign of the times that Ludwig Willi's Westostliche
Schwalben, which for the last fifteen years hardly
made any impression in Germany, was recently trans-
lated into French, with an introduction which at-
tracted the attention of the French press to the
Jewish people. Pierre Mercier, the French translator
of the Schttfcdben in his Essai sur la Litterature Jvive,
an essay on Jewish Literature, expresses his opinion
of this literature in a way which I cannot fully en-
dorse. He views Judaism in the same way that Jesus
did, namely, from the narrow and one-sided point of
view of spiritualism. Yet his conception of the spirit
that dominates the Torah is, in spite of its defects,
vastly superior in its depth of historical understand-
ing and broadness of sympathy with the Jewish ge-
nius, to those of the German historians who carry
their Jew-hatred even to the Bible.

More interesting is his judgment of modem Jewish
literature, which he considers an antidote against the
modem decadent romantic literature. But he errs
when he thinks that the wholesome source of this
modem Jewish literature is Jewish spiritualization.
Jewish life was never wholly spiritualized. Even the
Essenes, who flourished among the Jews at the time
of the birth of Christianity and to whom^ Christianity
owes its origin, were not a thoroughly spiritualistic
sect, and not even the primitive Christians can be
considered as such. When the Essenic sect finally
did become spiritualized through Christianity, it sev-
ered its relations with Judaism, and not even a trace

ROME AND JERUSALEM 83

of it can be found.^ Almost every important point
of departure in the history of the development of the
great historical nations was accompanied by move-
ments within that nation which is the bearer and
creator of historical religion. The passing from
antiquity into the Middle Ages, this autumn equinox
of humanity, was heralded by great and stormy dis-
turbances within Judaism which gave rise to Chris-
tianity, on the one hand, and to those sects within
the pale of Judaism itself, on the other. But the
sects were not of an enduring character; as soon as
the crisis passed, they disappeared without leaving
any traces behind. Also to-day, during the spring
equinox of humanity, will the glorious future to which
we strive be heralded by movements in Judaism. And
although the world has not taken any cognizance of
these stirrings in Judaism as yet, they are not there-
fore of less value than those that took place at the
transition period from antiquity to the Middle Ages.
Already at the beginning of the modern period, a
Messianic movement, such as never occurred since the
destruction of the Jewish State at the time of Bar
Kochba, took hold of Eastern as well as Occidental
Jews, a movement the false prophet of which was
Sabbatai Zevi, but whose true prophet was Spinoza.
Our modern Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes, also —

1 Cf., on Jewish sects, Graetz, History of the Jews, Vol. Ill,
note 10, German edition, and Vol. II in English. Lnzzato, also
expresses himself in connection with his remarks on Essenian-
ism, decidedly against spiritualization and asceticism as being
antagonistic to the spirit of Judaism. See his Commentary
on Deut vi, S.

84 ROME AND JERUSALEM

I mean the reformers, the rabbinists and the Chasi-
dim ^ — ^will disappear from Jewish history after the
crisis has passed, the last crisis in universal history,
when all the nations, and with them the Jewish people,
will have awakened to a new life. Judaism does not
allow either spiritualistic or materialistic sects to ex-
ist in its midst. Jewish life, like its divine ideal and
goal, is undivided, and it is this Monism of Jewish
life which acts as an antidote against modem mate-
rialism, which is only the reverse side of Christian
spiritualism. I do not speak here of philosophical
systems or of religious dogmas, or of life concep-
tions, but of life itself. Life is a product of the
mental activity of the race, which forms its social
institutions according to its inborn instincts and typ-
ical inclinations. Out of this primitive life-forming
source springs later the life-view of a race, which in
its turn influences life or rather modifies it, but is
never able to alter essentially the primal type which
continually reappears and takes the ascendency.^

It was the German race that endowed the Christian
world with the double aspect of spiritualism and ma-
terialism. The author of the Essai sur la Litteratwre
Juive is right when he says that we are exceedingly
generous in giving the entire credit for the modern
love mania to Christianity. It is rather due to the
mediaeval feeling of chivalry. The circumstances
which produced this romantic sentimentality arose,
not from the influence of Christianity alone, but from

2 See Note V at end of book.
sCf. Epilogue.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 85

the combination of Christianity with old Germanic
traditions. Without the contribution of the race
genius of the Northern peoples, Christianity would
have never occupied that position in universal his-
tory which it has occupied for centuries. Had it not
been for those brave adventurers, the Teutonic
knights of the Middle Ages, whose personal life os-
cillated between the two opposite poles of gross sen-
sualism and the most abstract mysticism, Christian
dualism would never have succeeded in impressing
modern life so thoroughly and deeply. Thus it is not
theory that forms life, but race; and likewise, it is
not doctrine that made the Biblical-patriarchal life,
which is the source of the Jewish cult, but it is the
patriarchal life of the Jewish ancestors that is the
creative basis of the religion of the Bible, which is
nothing else but a national historical cult developed
out of family traditions.

Before the appearance of the Germanic races, there
were only two forms of religion, the natural and the
historical. The first found its typical expression in
Greece, the second in Judasa. Just as the Greek cult
had brought to light the perfection and charm of
Nature, so Judaism revealed to us the force of the
divine law in history. With the entrance of the Ger-
manic race, both natural and historical religion lost
their hold over the human mind and their influence
was replaced by an apotheosis of the individual.
Christianity found among the Northern races a natu-
ral inclination for that which in Christianity itself
was only a result of the decay of the ancient nation-

86 ROME AND JERUSALEM

alities, namely, that view of life which sees neither in
Nature nor in history the unified divine life, but only
the isolated existence of the individual.*

As long as the Germanic race dominates Europe,
there can be no development of national life. The
"religion of love," separated from natural and his-
torical life, had only the salvation of the individual
soul in view. The apotheosis of the individual ter-
minated finally in a sentimental, feminine cult, which
even to the present day possesses great attraction
for our romantic Jews and inspires in them a sym-
pathy for Christianity.

"Love," says Mercier, "was glorified and extolled,
in all forms, as the noblest aim in life. The virtue
of women, and even their vice, assumed an undue and
all too important place in life, so that woman herself
came to believe that the fate of the world depends
upon her fidelity or infidelity. She therefore shared
the fate of all those whom fortune has fondled too
excessively, namely, through undue flattery she be-
came corrupted. And so it happened that love ab-
sorbed all social forces, all family tradition, and
finally dissolved itself into sentimentality.

The Jews alone had the good sense to subordinate
sexual to maternal love. Alexander Weill puts the
following words in the mouth of a Jewish mother:
"Should a true Jewish mother care for love.-" Love
is a wicked form of idolatry, A Jewess must love
only her God, her parents and her children. . . ."
The little old grandmother in Kompert's story says :
* See Note VI at end of book.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 87

"God cannot be present everywhere at the same time ;
He therefore created the mother . . ," Maternal
love is represented in the Jewish novel as the basis
of family life, as its passion and mystery. It is the
same type of the Jewish mother which is repeated in
all Jewish novels. There rises before me the picture
of the Jewish mother, her face serene but pale, a
melancholy smile plays around her lips and her deep,
penetrating eye seems to gaze toward the distant
future."

When you read these words of Mercier, you will
certainly be reminded of your own mother, to whom
this description aptly applies. There arose before
me, also, on reading this description of the Jewish
mother, the image of my own mother, whose features
I stiU remember. I lost her in my youth at the age
of fourteen, but till recently she appeared to me
almost every night in my dreanis, and I remember her
words, as if they were uttered but yesterday, which
she spoke to me when she visited me in Bonn. We
were already in bed and had just finished the evening
prayer. Then, speaking in an animated voice, she
began: "Listen^ my child, you must study diligently.
Mohrich ^ was one of my ancestors, and you are for-
tunate that you are studying under your grandfather.
It is written that 'when grandfather and grandchild
study the Torah together, the study of the divine Law
will never more forsake the family, but will be handed

5 M'H'R'CH, the initials of one of the later rabbinical writers
who fled from Poland into Germany^ so as to save his wife from
the forced attentions of a Polish nobleman. — Tramlator,

88 ROME AND JERUSALEM

down from generation to generation.' " ® The words
of my mother must have impressed me deeply, for I
still remember them distinctly, although I have never
since heard nor read about the legend in regard to
grandfather and grandchild.

Thus the thought of his children constitutes the
central point around which the life and love of the
Jew moves. Love is too strong an emotion in the
Jewish heart, too vast, to spend itself in sexual at-
traction and not embrace in its depth the generations
of the future. And because of the fact that the eye
of Jewish love is turned toward the future, the Jewish
people has produced so many holy seers. A childless
union is nowhere so much deplored as among the
Jews. According to the rabbis, a childless man is
like unto the dead. Only the Jews could heartily
join the great French poet, Victor Hugo, in his
prayer :

Preserve my loved ones, Lord, I pray,

My kith and kin, — laj enemies spare.

That never in the evil day

Our summers may of flowers be bare.

Our cages lacking trilling key,

Our honeycombs devoid of bee.

Or childless house to ever see.

I close with the above verses cited by Mercier, a
subject which we discussed at some length,'^ but in

6 The words of my mother have their origin in a Talmudic
saying (Baba Metziah, 8Sa) which utilizes the words of the
verse, Ecclesiastes iv, 13: "And a threefold cord cannot be
quickly broken."

T Hess refers to the translation of the "Schwalben" poems

ROME AND JERUSALEM 89

the interests of the national regeneration of our peo-
ple, it must be constantly emphasized. If it is grati-
fying to see that inspired poets and writers champion
the cause of our nationality, it is still more fortunate
that the loyalty to a people, with whose help the
oppressed nation will reawaken, was not unknown
among the Jews. What would this people, I mean
the French, think of us, when during the springtime
of nations, the daybreak of the French Revolution,
not a sound of loyalty and sympathy was heard in
the midst of our nation.'' But thanks to the French
translator of the Schwalben, the stain was removed
from our name. Although neither Wihl nor the other
Jewish writers and poets have expressed themselves
for our own political regeneration, they have, at least,
shown to the world that progressive Judaism also
cherishes patriotic memories, and that through some
stimulus this poetic and ideal patriotism may be con-
verted into a strong and mighty force of action.
And, therefore, I do not doubt, that from now on,
progressive Jews will labor for the political regener-
ation of our people with the same energy that other
Jews, in other times, have labored for the emanci-
pation of the Jews in the lands of exile. Thejpring-
time of nations which is about to merge into the fruit-
ripening Summer, wiU not pass without leaving a
lasting impression upon our Occidental brethren.
Among the Jews, also. Spring wiU quietly fructify

by Wihl which he discussed at length and which seem to ex-
press a certain amount of enthusiasm for the French people. —
Trantlator.

90 ROME AND JERUSALEM

the buds, and the bloom of a new life will suddenly
surprise every beholder. The young Jewish genera-
tion, sensitive to every high and noble ideal, will
enthusiastically join the Jewish national movement;
and once the young branch turns its growing force in
that direction, even the barren trunk will soon be
covered with leaves and flowers that will be an orna-
ment to Israel.

Till now, however, beloved friend, the barren wood
preponderates in Occidental Judaism. Most of the
German Jews, as soon as they come in contact with
European civilization, begin to feel ashamed of their
religion and descent. The Germans have so fre-
quently and thoroughly demonstrated to us that our
nationality is an obstacle to our "inner" emancipa-
tion, that we have finally come to believe it ourselves
and, giving up our Jewish culture and denying our
race, have made every effort to be deserving of the
"blond" Germanism. Yet in spite of the excellent
mathematicians among them, our Jewish Teutoma-
niacs, who bartered away their Judaism for State
positions, grossly miscalculated their chances. It did
not avail Meyerbeer that he painstakingly avoided
the use of a Jewish theme as the subject of any of
his operas ; he did not escape, on that account, the
hatred of the Germans. The old honest Attgsburger
Allgememe Zeitvjig seldom refrained, while mention-
ing his name, from remarking parenthetically, "Jacob
Meyer Lippman Beer." The German patriot Boeme,
likewise, did not gain much by changing his family
name, Baruch, into that of Boeme. He admits it

ROME AND JERUSALEM 91

himself. "Whenever my enemies founder upon the
rock of Borne," he writes, "they throw out, as an
anchor of safety, the name Baruch." I have ex-
perienced it personally, not only with opponents, but
even with my own party members. In personal con-
troversy they always make use of the "Hep" weapon,
and in Germany it is always effective. I have made
it easy for them to wield their weapon by adopting
my Old Testament name, Moses. I regret exceed-
ingly that my name is not Itzig.

SEVENTH LETTER

The Reform trick and the uncritical reaction — Luther
and Mendelssohn — The rationalistic double — The
key to the religion of the future — The three epochs
in the development of the Jewish spirit — Restora-
tion of the Jemsh State.

The question you asked me, the answer to
which constitutes the most difficult problem of Nine-
teenth Century Jewry, shows me that you have finally
begun to interest yourself in Jewish affairs. You
have, then, nothing against the attempt to raise the
Jews once more to their former place in universal
history. But you believe that this aspiration is
merely a desire, and that at the present time, world
Jewry consists only of a number of scattered and
dispersed Jewish families, but is not a nation. The;
religious tie, which till now has bound the scattered
members together and united them into a single en-
tity, is now severed through the participation of Jews
in the general cultural life. True, the reformers have
tried to mend the situation, but they have succeeded
only in widening the breach. And with barren ortho-
doxy and the uncritical reactionaries — those who still
believe that the Polish fur cap is a law given orally
to Moses 'on Sinai and handed down by the sages — it
is useless to argue.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 93

The inevitable result of this situation is, you think,
indifference and severance from Judaism. Nobody
can be held responsible for this precarious situation,
for it is not the arbitrariness of man, but the force
of circumstances that has dissolved the unity of or-
thodox Judaism. Which community, you ask, which
synagogue, shall one who is still attached to his peo-
ple, join.? Again, you call out maliciously, shall we
condemn our Jewish scholars for their attempt to
give us, in lieu of the "externally shattered" hard
shell of Rabbinism, the light of Science?

No, my dear friend, we will not hold anyone re-
sponsible for a crisis, though a dangerous one, but
one which is, after all, wholesome and necessary. No
human power could have avoided it, but its gravest
symptoms are gradually disappearing and we have
no fear of its repetition. Judaism, which in its first
contact with modem civilization was threatened with
dissolution — we say it without fear of being contra-
dicted by history — ^has successfully withstood this
last danger, perhaps the greatest that ever threatened
its existence. Judaism, at present, expects no antag-
onism either from science or from life, but only from
those who pose as its representatives without having
the right to do so.

Far be it from me to minimize the untiring labor
of the Jewish scholars to whom our present Jewish
generation owes its education, social position, and
mental and moral progress, and whom alone we have
to thank for the fact that in the midst of an almost
universal social disintegration the Jewish family still

94 ROME AND JERUSALEM

serves as a model of moral conduct. These scholars
and teachers are the successors of the ancient rabbis,
who were the support and stay of Judaism during
the long two thousand year exile, and who, neverthe-
less, never formed themselves into a caste.

Yet even they, like our poets, are so much en-
grossed by the general current of life, that they
hardly devote any time to thought about our national
regeneration. And as with the Jewish scholars, so
is it with the young generation ; they need some ex-
ternal stimulus to rouse their dormant national feel-
ings, so that they will proclaim themselves openly as
Jewish patriots. The threatening danger to Judaism
comes only from the religious reformers who, with
their newly-invented ceremonies and empty eloquence
have sucked the marrow out of Judaism and left only
its skeleton. It was not enough for them to aspire
to spread and develop Jewish study on scientific prin-
ciples, nor were they satisfied with a regulated, ss-
thetic form of our ancient Jewish cult. Their re-
ligious reform was inopportunely borrowed from a
foreign religious denomination, and has no basis or
justification either in the conditions of the modem
world or in the essential teachings of national Ju-
daism. I do not deny the justification of the Chris-
tian Reformation at the time of Luther, nor of the
Jewish reform movement at the time of Mendelssohn.
The latter, however, was more of an aesthetic than
a religious or scientific reform. Those reformers
keenly appreciated the historical basis of a religion
and knew well that the old basis cannot be arbitrarily

ROME AND JERUSALEM 95

replaced by a new one. Our reformers, on the con-
trary, attempted to reform the basis itself. Their
reforms have only a negative purpose — if they have
any aim at all — to firmly establish unbelief in the
national foundation of the Jewish religion. No won-
der that these reforms only fostered indifference to
Judaism and conversions to Christianity. Judaism,
like Christianity, would have to disappear as a result
of the general state of enlightenment and progress,
if it were not more than a mere dogmatic religion,
namely, a national cult. The Jewish reformers, how-
ever, those who are still present in some German
communities, and maintain, to the best of their abil-
ity, the theatrical show of religious reform, know
so little of the value of national Judaism, that they
are at great pains to erase carefully from their creed
and worship all traces of Jewish nationalism. They
fancy that a recently manufactured prayer or hymn
book, wherein a philosophical theism is put into rhyme
and accompanied by music, is more elevating and
soul-stirring than the fervent Hebrew prayers which
express the pain and sorrow of a nation at the loss
of its fatherland. They forget that these prayers,
which not only created, but preserved for millenni-
ums, the unity of Jewish worship, are even to-day
the tie which binds into one people all the Jews scat-
tered around the globe. ^

1 If the reformers cannot entirely supplant the prayers by
hymns, they attempt, at least, to amend them. Dr. Hirsch,
Rabbi of Luxemburg, changed the expression "who restorest
thy divine presence unto Zion," in the Eighteen Benedictions,

96 ROME AND JERUSALEM

The efforts of our German Jewish religious reform-
ers tended to the conversion of our national and
humanitarian Judaism into a second Christianity cut
after a rationalistic pattern, at a time when Chris-
tianity itself was already in a state of disintegration.
Christianity, which came into existence on the graves
of the ancient nations, had to withdraw from partici-
pation in national life. It therefore must continue
to suffer from internal dissensions arising from the
constant clash of irreconcilable principles, until it is
finally replaced among the regenerated nations by a
new historical cult. To this coming cult, Judaism
alone holds the key. This "religion of the future"
of which the eighteenth century philosophers, as well
as their recent followers, dreamed, will neither be an
imitation of the ancient pagan Nature cult, nor a
reflection of the neo-Christian or the neo-Judaism
skeleton, the specter of which haunts the minds of
our religious reformers. Each nation will have to
create its own historical cult; each people must be-
come, like the Jewish people, a people of God.

Judaism is not threatened, like Christianity, with
danger from the nationalistic and humanistic aspira-
tions of our time, for in reality, these sentiments

to "whom alone we serve in reverence." Some reformers are
satisfied to omit from the Prayer Book the beautiful hymn
Yigdal, for the reason that the belief in the Messianic age ii
poetically expressed in this song. It seems that the reformers
think that the Messianic belief, which is the soul of Judaism,
found its expression only in these few prayers and poems, and
they cannot conceive that it is the underlying basis of the
whole Jewish Cult.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 97

belong to the very essence of Judaism. It is a very
prevalent error, most likely borrowed from Chris-
tianity, that an entire view of life can te compressed
into a single dogma. I do not agree with Men-
delssohn that Judaism has no dogmas. I claim that
the divine teaching of Judaism was never, at any
time, completed and finished. It has always kept on
developing, its development being based upon the
harmonizing of the Jewish genius with that of hfe
and humanity. Development of the knowledge of
God, through study and conscientious investigation,
is not only not forbidden in Judaism, but is even
considered a religious duty. This is the reason why
Judaism never excluded philosophical thought or even
condemned it, and also why it has never occurred to
any good Jew to "reform" Judaism according to
his philosophical conceptions. Hence there were no
real sects in Judaism. Even recently, when there
was no lack of orthodox and heterodox dogmatists
in Jewry, there arose no sects ; for the dogmatic basis
of Judaism is so wide, that it allows free play to
every mental speculation and creation. Differences of
opinion in regard to metaphysical conceptions have
always obtained among the Jews, but Judaism has
never excluded anyone. The apostates severed them-
selves from the bond of Jewry. "And not even them
has Judaism forsaken," added a learned rabbi, in
whose presence I expressed the above-quoted opinion.
In reality, Judaism as a nationality has a natural
basis which cannot be set aside by mere conversion
to another faith, as is the case in other religions.

98 ROME AND JERUSALEM

A Jew belongs to his race and consequently also to
Judaism, in spite of the fact that he or his ancestors
have become apostates. It may appear paradoxical,
according to our modem religious opinions, but_in
life, at least, I have observed this view to be true.
The converted Jew remains a Jew no matter how
much he objects to it. At present, there is but little
difference between the enlightened and the converted

Jew. My friend, Armond L , whose grandfather

had already been converted, is more interested in
Jewish affairs than many a circumcised Jew, and he
has preserved his faith in Jewish nationality more
faithfully than our enlightened rabbis.

The Jew was not commanded to believe, but to
search after the knowledge of God. Belief is a mat-
ter of conscience, for which we are not accountable
to anyone but ourselves. It is impossible to give it
to another. It is very easy, indeed, for false ration-
alism, just as for blind faith, to drawl forth its creed.
But real religion, which grows out of the innermost
life of the soul, develops with the individual. Hu-
manity cannot be formulated completely and em-
braced in a set of articles of creed. On the wide,
dogmatic basis of Judaism, many and various views
of life were able to develop. But for creative Ju-
daism itself, these various views of life were only
passing phases, the result of internal and external
experiences ; and in spite of this multiplicity of forms
of development, the original type never disappeared,
but was constantly reproduced as the ripe fruit of
the tree of life.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 99

The noble Jewish spirits and the, great thinkers of
Israel understood this peculiar character of histori-
cal Judaism. They did see in every modification of
the view of life a new religion, and never persuaded
themselves that they could reform the historical basis
of our religion. Saadia and Maimonides, Spinoza and
Mendelssohn did not become apostates, in spite of
their progressive spirit, though there were many
fanatics who wanted to exclude them from Judaism,
or, as in the case of Spinoza, had him excluded. Our
modern rationalists would excommunicate from the
Synagogue Jews who declare themselves Spinozists,
if they only had the power.

Dissatisfied with reform and repulsed by the fanat-
icism of the orthodox and heterodox, you ask me,
with which religious faction should one affiliate with
his family in these da-js? I know only one religious
fellowship, the old Synagogue, which is fortunately
still in existence and will, I hope, exist until the
national regeneration of world Jewry is accomplished.
I myself, had I a family, would, in spite of my dog-
matic heterodoxy, not only join an orthodox syna-
gogue, but would also observe in my house all feast
and fast days, so as to keep alive in my heart and in
the heart of my children, the traditions of my people.
If I had influence in the synagogue, I would en-
deavor to beautify the religious worship. Above all,
I would see to it that scholarly Jewish teachers and
preachers should assinne their proper positions and
be reverently respected. I would then turn my hand
to other reforms, if you care to call them such, but of

100 ROME AND JERUSALEM

a different kind than those spiritless and empty re-
forms favored by our religious reformers. No ancient
custom or usage should be changed, no Hebrew
prayer should be shortened or read in German trans-
lation. And, finally, no Sabbath or Festival should
be abolished or be postponed to the Christian day of
rest. The Hazcm and singers should not be mere
soulless singing machines. The prayers and hymns
should be read and sung by pious men and boys, who
are not only versed in music, but also in religious mat-
ters. The house of prayer is not a theater and the
cantor and singers, as well as the preacher, should be
something more than mere comedians. What does
not come from the heart can never affect the heart.
Prayers, songs and sermons, which treat our holy
national worship as an antiquated institution, cannot
exalt the soul; they always arouse in me an uncon-
querable aversion. In a word, I would favor every-
thing which would contribute to the elevation and
education of the- congregation, without, at the same
time, undermining our ancient worship. And in my
own family circle, also, I would carefully see that
the traditions of our people are strictly observed.

If people were to follow the policy outlined above,
peace would reign in Jewish communities, and the
religious cravings of every Jew, no matter what view
of life he holds, would be better satisfied than they
are with the reforms that every intellectual bungler
fashions after ^ his own individual pattern. These
unsystematic reforms only terminate in a meanings
less nihilism, which brings in its train desolation of

ROME AND JERUSALEM 101

spirit and a continual estrangement from Judaism on
the part of our young generation.

We really confer too much honor upon reform when
we call it a free, intellectual movement, in the higher
sense. True, in a negative sense, we may call ration-
alistic criticism a free tendency, for the negation of
antiquated principles is the first step toward free-
dom. But positive freedom is an autonomous devel-
opment, and when rationalistic reform denies the es-
sence of Judaism, namely, its nationalism, it cannot
become a creative factor, and consequently cannot
be said to be free in the higher sense. Its services on
behalf of negative criticism are very slight; and
these, as you rightly remarked, are for the most
part, due to the circumstances and conditions of a
revolutionary age for which the reformers can hardly
be held responsible.

Modern social life, the outcome of the revolution,
is regenerating in its nature; it does not occupy
itself solely with tearing down the old, but is mainly
busy with creating new forms. At the basis of
every creation, however, there is something of the old,
for ex mMlo mhU, out of nothing, nothing can be
created. The national-humanitarian essence of the
Jewish historical religion is the germ out of which
future social creations will spring forth. As long as
Jews misconceive the essence of the, spirit of modern
times, which was originally their own spirit, they will
only be dragged along involuntarily by the current
of modern history, but will not participate in its
making. In order to be influenced by modern life,

102 ROME AND JERUSALEM

there was no necessity for rationalistic reform. Such
countries as the Rhine provinces and France clearly
demonstrate this. In these countries the current of
modem life is at its height, yet rationalistic, religious
reform has hardly appeared there. It is in these
countries, too, that religious indifference has been
brought about without the help of a reform move-
ment. Even orthodox Jewry itself, in modern Eu-
rope, is gradually being carried away by the current,
as can be seen by the fact that the most important
function of Rabbinism, namely, its jurisdiction, has
disappeared, without the slightest protest on the
part of orthodoxy.^ Reform has only gone a step
further — to raise this groundless negation to the rank
of a principle, or, as remarked above, has sanctioned
unbelief. We could well afford not to begrudge the
reformers their laurels, had they not persuaded them-
selves that they had created something positive. Imi-
tating Christian reformers of an earlier age, they
set up the Bible, in contradistinction to the Talmud,
as the positive content of regenerated Judaism, and
by this anachronism, which was merely an imitation
of a foreign movement, they only made themselves
ridiculous. It is, in reality, a narrower point of view
than that of orthodox Judaism, to declare the living,

2 Hess refers to the rabbinical courts and the jurisdiction
they had exercised in civil cases between Jew and Jew. The
power of these courts in Western Jewish communities began
to decline as early as the beginning of the 19th Century, and
was completely abrogated by the middle of the century. In
Russia and other parts of Eastern Jewry, the Rabbinic courts
are still maintained in most Jewish communities. — Tratulator.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 103

oral tradition to be a "human fiction," and because
it was written down at a later time, to discard it,
while admitting the law of the Bible to be divine.
This view is also unhistorical. Everything tends to
show that until the Babylonian exile, or even still
later, until the period of the Sopherim, no distinc-
tion was made between the written and the oral laws,
as is the case to-day. It is only after the time of
the Sopherim that this distinction was made. Until
then, tradition was neither exclusively written nor
exclusively oral. How this separation was effected
has not yet been clearly demonstrated by critical
historians. But one thing is firmly established,
namely, that the spirit which at the time of the
restoration inspired the Sopherim and the sages of
the Great Synagogue, was freer, holier, and more
patriotic, than the spirit which inspired Moses and
the Prophets. Every liberation from a politico-
social slavery is at the same time a liberation of the
spirit and serves as a means of fertilizing the na-
tional genius.

There are two epochs that mark the development
of Jewish law: the first, after the liberation from
Egypt ; the second, after the return from Babylonia.
The third is yet to come, with the redemption from
the third exile. The significance of the second legis-
lative epoch is more misunderstood by our reformers
(who have no conception of the creative genius of
the Jewish nation), than by our rabbis, who place
the law-givers of this period even higher than Moses,
for they say: "Ezra would have deserved that the

104 ROME AND JERUSALEM

Torah be given to Israel through him, had not Moses
preceded him." In the form in which we possess it
to-day, the Torah was handed down to us directly
through the men of that epoch. These same men,
living at the same time, utilizing the same traditions,
and in the same spirit, collected both the written and
the oral law, which they handed down to later genera-
tions. Nothing entitles the written law to a holier
origin than the oral. On the contrary, the free de-
velopment of the law by oral tradition, from the time
of the return from the Babylonian exile, was always
considered of greater importance than the mere cling-
ing to the written law. The reason for this is quite
evident. The national legislative genius would have
been extinguished, had the sages not occupied them-
selves with the living development of the law. It
was to this occupation that Judaism owed its na-
tional renaissance after the Babylonian exile, as well
as its existence in the diaspora. It was through this,
that the great heroes who fought so bravely against
the Greeks and Romans, rose in Israel. ,' And, finally,
it is to this oral development of the law that Judaism
owes its existence during the two thousand years of
exile; and to it the Jewish people will also owe its
future national regeneration, j

The rabbis were justified in their long struggle
against writing down the oral law. Had they kept
on teaching and developing the law orally in the
schools, Judaism would never have been threatened
with the loss of its national legislative genius. But
they were compelled to reduce the law to writing, in

ROME AND JERUSALEM 105

order to avoid a still greater danger, namely, its
being entirely forgotten, especially in the diaspora.
To-day, we have no reason to fear the latter danger.
But we can escape the former, only if we set up the
spirit of criticism against barren formalism and dis-
solving rationalism and revive in our hearts and
souls the holy, patriotic spirit of our prophets and
sages. We have to restudy our history, which has
been grossly neglected by our rationalists, and re-
kindle in the hearts of our young generation the
spirit which was the source of inspiration to our
prophets and sages. Then, also, will we draw our
inspiration from the deep well of Judaism ; then will
our sages and wise men regain the authority which
they forfeited from the moment when, prompted by
other motives than patriotism, they estranged them-
selves from Judaism and attempted to reform the
Jewish law. We will then again become participa-
tors in the holy spirit, namely, the Jewish genius,
which alone has the right to develop and form the
Jewish law according to the needs of the people.
And then, when the third exile will finally have come
to an end, the restoration of the Jewish State will
find us ready for it.

EIGHTH LETTER

The Neo-Hebraic literature — Luzzato, Rappoport,
FranJcel, Krochmal, Sachs and Heine on Jiidah
Halem — Mendelssohn and the Modernists — Schorr
— Sectarians without sects — Salvador — Fusionists
and Freemasons — Hirsch — The pretended calling
of the Jew in exile.

You are certainly in error, dear friend, when you
believe that only our progressive Jews have acquired
the mastery of modem culture and science and that
orthodox Jews are still steeped in Egyptian darkness,
a condition which is as detrimental to the renaissance
of our nation as is modem indifference. Since I
have devoted myself to the cause of my people, I have,
partly through personal contact and partly through
their writings, come to know many orthodox Jews
of the old as well as of the younger generation and
especially of the latter, who do not fall behind the
enlightened Jews, in scientific and literary education.
These scholars have, at the same time, a more thor-
ough understanding and conception of the past as
well as of the future, than those enlightened minds
who lack the philosophic and historical sense.

Orthodox Jewry everywhere, in England, France,
Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Bohemia, has
its literary and scientific representatives who are a's

106

ROME AND JERUSALEM 107

worthy as those of enlightened Jewry. Newspapers,
magazines and even philosophical books, permeated
with the same spirit of true humanitarianism as the
nation to which they belong, are published by our
orthodox brethren in the sacred tongue of their
fathers. Hebrew literature, thanks to the works of
Luzzato, Rappoport, Frankel and Krochmal, was
reawakened to new life, and already a number of
educated modern German rabbis conduct their cor-
respondence in Hebrew. Even Holdheim himself did
not disdain to compose his swan song in Hebrew ; and
Schorr, a more violent opponent of orthodoxy than
Holdheim, publishes his periodical Hachalutz in
Hebrew. How great must the influence exerted by
National Judaism be, when even its opponents are
forced to employ its own medium in order to gain a
hearing.

Read the work of Dr. Sachs, The Religiotts Poetry
of the Spamsh Jews. This book, written in the finest
style, will convince you that educated orthodox Jews
exert a far more, wholesome influence on Judaism than
the reformers. The last only reflect, on the ruins of
a fossilized orthodoxy, a cold, borrowed light of a
by-gone epoch, without possessing either the light
or the warmth of new life themselves. You perhaps
know, from reading Heine's Ronumcero, the tragic
end of this great patriot and sacred singer, Judah
Halevi who, according to the legend, met his death
at the ruins of the Temple at Jerusalem, whither he
was driven by his irresistible longing to visit the land
of his fathers. You will certainly be interested to

108 ROME AND JERUSALEM

learn a few things about the life and character of
this pious bard who enriched our prayer book with
his beautiful and noble poems. "The one," says Dr.
Sachs, "who cannot theoretically conceive the solu-
tion of the problem, how a dispersed people may
possess a nationality and a homeless nation a father-
land, will find in the personality of this great singer
and in his poetry, a practical solution to that prob-
lem." I must here remark that the Judaso-Spanish
cultural epoch succeeded in solving one more grave
problem, namely, how it is possible to be a good, pa-
triotic, national Jew, in the full sense of the words
and at the same time participate in the cultural and
political life of the land to such a degree that the
land may become a second fatherland. "The longing
for the hour of redemption," continues Sachs, "is the
dominant note in the Jewish poetry of the Spanish
period. With many, it was the oppressive conditions
of existence that called forth that irrepressible long-
ing. But with Halevi, this longing is a pure, loving
desire, which possesses, on the one hand, the simplicity
and naivete of childhood and, on the other, the glow
of a mighty passion. The energy and vividness with
which he expresses his confidence in the redemption
of his people is only the more gripping, because of
the fact that in his poetry there is no trace of the
gloomy present, and his hope of the future does not
appear to be the result of a daring escape from the
dark environment which surrounds him, into the shin-
ing regions of phantasy. He is confident of his cause
and the joy of his belief intoxicates and inspires him."

ROME AND JERUSALEM 109

This confidence and joy of belief remind me vividly
of my pious grandfather. Whenever they spoke to
him of plans for the future, he always objected to
making such plans, remarking that we Jews, being in
exile, have no right to plan for the future, as the
Messiah may suddenly arrive. My grandfather was
neither a poet nor a prophet ; he was only a plain
business man, who in the daytime attended to his
routine work, that he might support his family and
in the night devoted himself to religious and scholarly
studies. After the dispersion, study became, as you
can find again in Sachs, an essential and inseparable
part of the national cult. "The house of study," he
says, "became the only central point of an independ-
ent, free life, and the teachers were the bearers of all
ideals which were typical and characteristic of na-
tional Judaism." The Synagogue was rather a school-
house than a house of prayer. Even to the present
day, it is still designated, by the German Jews, as
"Schul." The typical national cult, finding its ex-
pression in the study and in the minute observance of
thousands of precepts with which Judaism fenced
itself around in order to preserve its integrity in dis-
persion, is misconceived by our enlightened Jews.
These legal and religious precepts and command-
ments, which permeate the whole life of the Jew, are
condemned and mocked at by blockheads, who have
not the least conception of the patriotic significance
of these precepts and who consider themselves pro-
gressive only because they have turned their back on
the traditions of their people. It is the same ten-

110 ROME AND JERUSALEM

dency which came to the front immediately after the
appearance of Mendelssohn and which caused Men-
delssohn himself pain and aggravation. During the
life of Mendelssohn, there emerged those "Modern
Jews" who measure the degree of enlightenment and
education one possesses by the amount of his dis-
regard for Jewish customs, and who finally graduated
into State-service by presenting a conversion certifi-
cate as their diploma. They relate an anecdote which
originated during that first epoch of Jewish enlight-
enment and which is characteristic of that period.
A Jew came to Mendelssohn and boasted of his son's
philosophical ability. When the great Berlin phil-
osopher asked the father wherein the philosophical
acumen of his son consisted, the happy man replied,
"Why my son has not put on his tephillin for
months."

You know that the use of phylacteries on the fore-
head and the hand originates in a Mosaic command.
It is prescribed in the Pentateuch, that in order to
remember the divine teaching, we should inscribe the
words of God's law on the doorposts of our houses,
and symbolize that teaching by wearing fringes on
our garments, binding the phylacteries "as a sign
upon the arm and as frontlets between the eyes." We
find pictures of garments with such fringes on the
old Egyptian monuments, which proves that this
custom is a very ancient one. But even assuming
with Schorr that the custom of putting on phy-
lacteries is not as old as that of wearing fringes on
the garments, the results of Schorr's investigation

ROME AND JERUSALEM 111

were not known to that "enlightened" son and his
happy father; just as they were unknown to the
Berlin philosopher, who conscientiously put on his
tepMLlm every day and observed all the Jewish cus-
toms. The enlightened epikoros could by no means
understand Mendelssohn's conscientious attachment
to traditional Judaism. His relation to orthodox
Judaism was not, as Mendelssohn persuaded himself,
a logical result of his rationalism, but was a natural
expression of his true Jewish spirit. His fine sense
of religiosity told him, that when a man turns his
back on tradition, he really severs himself from Ju-
daism itself and from its national essence. It is one
thing to restore Judaism, through unbiased historical
criticism, to its origins ; it is quite another to discard
it and belittle it through indifference and imitation. ,
You, who declare the teachings and ordinances of our
sages to be foolish inventions, pray tell us what would
have become of Judaism and the Jews if they had not,
through the institutions of the Talmudic sages,
thrown a protecting fence around their religion, so
as to safeguard it for the coming days ? Would they
have continued to exist for eighteen hundred years
and have resisted the influence of Christian and Mo-
hammedan civilization.? Would they not long ago
have disappeared as a nation from the face of the
earth, had they not, after they were driven out of
their own land, created out of the confines of their
own life, a sacred territory for their existence and a
soil on which they could thrive.''

To those who lack the historical sense, the exist-

112 ROME AND JERUSALEM

ence of one nation more or less is of little importance
for the historical development of humanity. The
great organic creation of Jewish literature which, for
the last three thousand years, was a gradual growth
out of the national essence of Judaism, seems to the
spiritual dwarfs, the rationalists, to be no more than
an unnecessary growth which, even in our age of en-
lightenment, has not been suflBciently eradicated.
These pygmies, who are living in an age of giants, do
not realize that their very existence is an anachronism.
As a precursor of the French Revolution, in the cen-
tury of The Critique of Pure Reason, the existence
of rationalism was justified. But to-day, when the
shackles of dogmatism have long been shaken off, we
feel more the need of creating new values, and for
this purpose utilize the creations of all ages, than
the continuation of mere negative criticism which has,
at present, but little value for us. Tlw desire to
create new values is felt even by those who are unable
to discern the creative ability in the expressions of
the Jewish spirit, and are thus unable to utilize the
previous creations of Judaism as a basis. But in
their ignorance and mental helplessness, they turned,
in their desire for creation, to external, artificial
means, which do not spring from the deep well of our
people's life.

In Jewry, as well as in the entire modem world,
there are to be discovered at present, two main ten-
dencies which, though diametrically opposed to each
other, still originate from the same source, namely,
the need of objective religious norms and the inability

ROME AND JERUSALEM 118

to create them. One tendency, as a result of the
above-mentioned cause, expresses itself on the part
of some people in turning back to the old uncritical
belief which, however, with them, lost its naive and
true character. In their despair, which arose as a
result of the dominant nihilism they insist on a con-
scious contradiction to all reason. This desperate
reaction, which defies the results of criticism and
spiritual revolution, is known in the Christian world
as Supernaturalism. In the Jewish world, it is rep-
resented by Hirsch, of Frankfort A/M, and other
less gifted spirits, as well as by a host of ignoramuses
and hypocrites, whose association with it really les-
sens its dignity. As an antidote against this re-
action, the negative reform aspirations may possess
some justification, even though, from the point of
view of reason, they did not succeed in creating any
stable solid life norms. The characteristic trait of
the negative spiritual tendency, which labored in vain
to create something of a general Jewish value, is its
extreme individualism and incoherence. The modem
religious reformers are sectarians without sects.
Each of our Jewish Protestants has his own code.
Out of this chaos of opinions there will undoubtedly
in time develop a new Jewish life. But this new life,
the beginnings of which are already noticeable in the
activities of the younger generation of Jewish schol-
ars, wiU bring entirely different results from those
hitherto expected in the liberal circles of German
Jewry.

French Jewry, also, within which there is not as

114 ROME AND JERUSALEM

yet, and perhaps there never will be, any cleavage on
the lines of reform and orthodoxy, is not free from
the traces of a tendency which strives after a fusion
of all historical cults into one, and which endeavors
to reach its aim by removing from the various re-
ligions their historical and characteristic traits, re-
taining only their common elements. You have cer-
tainly heard of Joseph Salvador, the author of the
work entitled history of the Mosaic Institutions and
of the Hebrew People. This same author recently
published a work entitled Paris, Rome and Jerusalem,
in which he clearly shows that even among our en-
lightened brethren, there are dreamers who wish for
a rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem. But he
attaches to this rebuilding conditions that are accept-
able neither to pious nor to progressive Christians
and Jews. If I understand the author correctly, he
expects his New Jerusalem to become the world cap-
ital of the fusionists. Salvador, furthermore, seems
to cherish the curious idea that the Jews ought first
to turn Christians, so that they may be the better
able to convert the Christians afterward to Judaism.
This work is, in reality, not as new as Salvador
thinks; it began eighteen hundred years ago. It
seems, however, that the Judaism of which Salvador
is thinking is as new as his Christianity.

More reasonable are the attempts of those fusion-
ists who, like my friend Hirsch, of Luxemburg, are
utilizing freemasonry as a means to amalgamate all
the historical cults into one. The Luxemburg Rabbi,
the antipode of his namesake, the Frankfort Rabbi

ROME AND JERUSALEM 115

Hirsch, developed the idea of fusion so thoroughly in
the excellent lectures which he delivered at the Lux-
emburg Lodge, and later published under the title
Hwmamty as a Religion, that, according to him, the
matter may be considered closed. All that remains
for the rabbis to do is to close up their reform tem-
ples and send the school children to the masonic tem-
ples. In truth, the logical consequences of reform
have long since led those who took the sermons of the
reform rabbis seriously, toward making such a step;
as you, being a resident of Frankfort, well know.
In vain did they afterward ornament their fusionist
sermons with Talmudic quotations. It was too late
and they had to be satisfied to preach to empty pews.
Jewish rationalists, who have as little reason to
remain within the fold of Judaism as have Christian
rationalists for clinging to Christianity are, like their
Christian friends, very energetic in discovering new
grounds for the existence of a religion which, accord-
ing to them, has no longer any reason to exist. . Ac-
cording to them, the dispersion of the Jews was
merely a preliminary step to their entering upon their
great mission. What great things are the Jews in
exile to accomplish in their opinion.? First of all,
they are to represent "pure" theism, in contradis-
tinction to Christianity. In the next place, tolerant
Judaism is to teach intolerant Christianity the prin-
ciples of humanitarianism. Furthermore, it is the
function of exilic Judaism to take care that morality
and life, which in the Christian world are severed
from each other, should become one. And lastly.

116 ROME AND JERUSALEM

the Jews must also act as industrial and commercial
promoters — be the leaven of such activities among
the civilized nations in whose midst they live. I have
even heard it remarked quite seriously, that the Indo-
Germanic race must improve its, quality by mingling
with the Jewish race !

But, mark you, from all these real or imaginary
benefits which the Jews in dispersion confer upon the
world, none will be diminished even after the restora-
tion of the Jewish State. For just as at the time
of the return from the Babylonian exile not all the
Jews settled in Palestine, but the majority remained
in the lands of exile, where there had been Jewish
settlements since the dispersion of Israel and Judah,
so need we not look forward to a larger concentration
of Jews at the future restoration. Besides, it seems
to me that those benefits which the Jews in exile
confer upon the world are exaggerated, "for the sake
of the cause." I consider it an anachronism to as-
sign to the Jews those missions which they certainly
performed in antiquity, and to some extent also in
mediaeval times, but which, at present, no longer be-
long peculiarly to them. As to affecting the unity
of life and theory, it is only possible with a nation
which is politically organized; such a nation alone
is able to realize it practically by embodying it in
its institutions.

Again, what section of world- Jewry is to teach the
Christians tolerance and humanity.? You will surely
say the enlightened Jews. But is not the enlightened
Christian entitled to repeat to the enlightened Jew

ROME AND JERUSALEM 117

the words which Lessing, in his Nathan the Wise, puts
into the mouth of the liberal Christian in his answer
to the liberal Jew: "What makes me a Christian in
your eyes, makes you a Jew in mine."

Or, on the other hand, should the enlightened Jew
say to the orthodox Christian, "Your beliefs are mere
superstitions, your religion only fanaticism," may
the enlightened Christian not turn to the orthodox
Jew and make similar remarks in defense of his own
religion? Our cultured Jews who accuse Christians
of possessing a persecution mania, reason as falla-
ciously as does Bethmann HoUweg when he charges
the Jews with the same trait. History can neither
be explained nor changed in its course by such ex-
planations.

From the viewpoint of enlightenment, I see as little
reason for the continuation of the existence of Ju-
daism as for Christianity. It is better for the Jew
who does not believe in the national regeneration of
his people, to labor, like the enlightened Christian,
for the dissolution of his religion. I understand how
one can hold such an opinion. But what I do not
understand is, how it is possible to believe simultane-
ously in "enlightenment" and in a Jewish Mission in
exile; in other words, in the ultimate dissolution and
in the continued existence of Judaism at the same
time.

NINTH LETTER

A dilemma — The sacred history of mankind — Our
allies — The wnity of the humam germs — Races and
folk types — The organism of mankind.

You confronted me with the dilemma, that we must
either agree with the Luxemburg Hirsch, that the
goal and essence of Judaism is humanitarianism, in
which case it is not national regeneration, but the
realization of humanitarian ideals which is the aim
worth striving for; — and Judaism, like every re-
ligious or political society, must ultimately become
absorbed and disappear in the larger fellowship of
humanity; — or we must agree with the Frankfort
Hirsch, who sees in Judaism the only salvation; in
which case, we disagree with the modem humanita-
rian aspirations and, like orthodox Christianity, we
need make little appeal to public opinion of the cen-
tury; for public opinion will receive such an appeal
with the same feeling that it would receive a Chinese
Proclamation or a Papal Bull.

I believe, dear friend, that the opinions I have here-
tofore expressed in my correspondence with you have
little in common with either horn of the dilemma.
They do not agree with the conceptions of either
extreme faction, but belong to a different order of

118

ROME AND JERUSALEM 119

ideas. I believe that not only does the national es-
sence of Judaism not exclude civilization and humani-
tarianism, but that the latter really foUow from it,
as necessarily as the result follows from the cause.
If, in spite of this, I emphasize the national side of
Judaism, which is the root, rather than the humani-
tarian aspect, which is the bloom and flower, it is
because in our time people are prone to decorate
themselves with the flowers of culture rather than
cultivate them again in the soil on which they grew.
It is out of Judaism that our humanitarian view of
life sprang. There is not a phase in Christian moral-
ity, nor in the scholastic philosophy of the Middle
Ages,^ nor in modern philanthropy, and, if we add

1 Munk, in his Melanges de philosophie juive et arabe, pp.
391-301, has already shown the influence of Avicebron on
Scholastic philosophy. The Mekor Hayim (Source of Life),
by Solomon b. Judah Ibn Gabirol (Avicebron), was translated
in the twelfth century by a Dominican Monk Gundisalvi, with
the help of a converted Jew, John Avendeath, into Latin, and
since that time it has played an important rdle in the struggle
between the Thomists and Scotists. Even Giordano Bruno
consulted the Fans Vitce (Source of Life), the book of the
Jewish philosopher Avicebron. More influential than the neo-
platonist, Avicebron, was Maimonides, whose book the More
Nebuchim (Guide of the Perple^fed), as shown by Dr. Joel,
Professor of the Breslau Seminary, was greatly utilized by
Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. According to Joel,
the influence of Maimonidian philosophy extended even to Leib-
nitz who, as recently shown by Foucher de Careil, was a de-
voted student and admirer of the More Nebuchim. "Even in
Kant's Religious Philosophy," says Dr. Joel, "we sometimes de-
tect an echo of the philosophy of Maimonides." (Cf. Frankel's
Monataachrift fuer Oeachichte und Wiaaenachaft dea Juden-
tums. Jahrgang, 1860, pp. 205-217. Also Graetz: Oeachichte
der Juden, Vol. VI, pp. 31-49 and p. 377.

120 ROME AND JERUSALEM

the latest manifestation of Judaism, Spinozism, not
even in modem philosophy, which does not have its
roots in Judaism. Until the French Revolution, the
Jewish people was the only people in the world which
had, simultaneously, a national as well as a humani-
tarian religion. It is through Judaism that the his-
tory of humanity became a sacred history. I mean
by that, that process of unified organic development
which has its origin in the love of the family and
which will not be completed until the whole of human-
ity becomes one family, the members of which will
be united by the holy spirit, the creative genius of
history, as strongly as the organs of a body are
united by the creative natural forces. As long as
no other people possessed such a national, humani-
tarian cult, the Jews alone were the people of God.
Since the French Revolution, the French, as well as
the other peoples which followed them, have become
our noble rivals and faithful allies.

With the final victory of these nations over Mediae-
val reaction, the humanitarian aspirations, with which
I am greatly in sympathy, so long as they do not
express themselves merely in hypocritical, flowery
words, will be realized and bear fruit. Anti-national
Humanitarianism is just as unfruitful as the anti-
humanitarian Nationalism of Mediaeval reaction. In
theoretical anti-national humanitarianism I can only
see, mildly speaking, an idealistic dream, but not a
semblance of reality. We become so saturated with
spiritualistic love and humanistic chloroform that we
ultimately become entirely unconscious of the pain

ROME AND JERUSALEM 121

and misery that the antagonism which still exists
between the various members of the great human
family causes in real life. This antagonism will not
be eradicated by enlightened sermons, but only by a
process of historical development based on laws as
unchangeable as the laws of Nature. Just as Nature
does, not produce flowers and fruits of a general
character, nor general plants and animals, but pro-
duces particular plant and animal types, so does the
creative power in history produce only folk types.
In mankind, the plan of the plant and animal king-
doms finds its perfection; but humanity, as a sepa-
rate life sphere, as the sphere of social life, is still in
the process of development. We find in the history
of social life a primal differentiation of folk-types
which at first, plant-like, existed side by side with
each other; then, animal-like, fought each other and
destroyed or absorbed one another, but which will
finally, in order to become absolutely free, live not
only in friendly fashion with one another, but live
each for the other, preserving, at the same time,
their particular type identity.

The laws of universal history, I mean the history
of the universe, namely, those of the cosmic, organic
and social life, are as yet little known. We have
particular sciences, but not a science of the universe ;
we still do not know the unity of all life. One thing,
however, is certain, that a fusion of cults, an ideal
to which so many aspire, and which was realized, at
least in part, for thousands of years by Catholic
Rome, will as little establish a lasting peace in hu-

122 ROME AND JERUSALEM

man society as the philanthropic but unscientific be-
lief in the absolute equality of men. | In their attempt
to base the granting of equal rights to all men on
the primitive uniformity of all races and types, the
humanitarians confound the organization of social
life on the basis of solidarity, which is the result of
a long and painful process of historical development,
with a ready-made, inorganic equality and uniform-
ity, which becomes rarer and rarer the farther back
we go in history. | The reconciliation of races follows
its own natural laws, which we can neither arbitrarily
create nor change. As to the fusion of cults, it is
really a past stage in the development of social life.
It was the watchword of that religion which owes its
existence to the death of the nations of antiquity,
i.e., Christianity. To-day the real problem is how
to free the various oppressed races and folk-types
and allow them to develop in their own way. The
dangerous possibility that the various nationalities
will separate themselves entirely from each other or
ignore each other, is to be feared as little as the
danger that they will fight among themselves and
enslave one another.

The present-day national movement not only does
not exclude humanitarianism, but strongly asserts
it; for this movement is a wholesome reaction, not
against humanism, but against the things that would
encroach upon it and cause its degeneration, against
the leveling tendencies of modern industry and civil-
ization which threaten to deaden every original or-
ganic life-force, by introducing a uniform inorganic

ROME AND JERUSALEM 123

mechanism. As long as these tendencies were directed
against the antiquated institutions of a long^peissed
historical period, their existence was justified. Nor
can this nationalistic reaction object to them, insofar
as they endeavor to establish closer relations be-
tween the various nations of the world. But, un-
fortunately, people have gone so far in life, as well
as in science, as to deny the typical and the creative ;
and as a result the vapor of idealism, on the one
hand, and the dust of atomism on the other, rest like
mildew on the red corn, and stifle the germinating
life in the bud. It is against these encroachments on
the most sacred principles of creative life that the
national tendencies of our time react, and it is against
these destructive forces that I appeal to the original
national power of Judaism.

Like the general universal cosmic life which finds
its termination in it, and the individual microcosmic
life in which all the buds and fruits of the spirit
finally ripen, Humanity is a living organism, of which
races and peoples are the members. In every organ-
ism changes are continually going on. Some, quite
prominent in the embryonic stage, disappear in the
later development. There are organs, on the other
hand, hardly noticeable in the earlier existence of the
organism, which become important only when the
organism reaches the end of its development.

To the latter class of members of organic human-
ity (which class is really the creative one) belongs the
Jewish people. This people was hardly noticeable
in the ancient world, where it was greatly oppressed

124. ROME AND JERUSALEM

by its powerful, conquering neighbors. Twice it came
near being destroyed; namely, in the Egyptian and
Babylonian captivities; and twice it rose to new
spiritual life and fought long and successfully against
the mightiest as well as the most civilized peoples
of antiquity — the Greeks and the Romans. Finally,
in the last struggle of the ancient world, it was this
people which fertilized the genius of humanity with
its own spirit, so as to rejuvenate itself, along with
the regeneration of humanity. To-day, when the
process of rejuvenation of the historical peoples is
ended and each nation has its special function in
the organism of humanity, we are for the first time
beginning to conceive the special significance of the
various organs of humanity.

England, with its industrial organization, repre-
sents the nerve-force of humanity which directs and
regulates the alimentary system of mankind ; France,
that of general motion, namely, the social ; Germany
discharges the function of thinking; and America
represents the general regenerating power by means
of which aU elements of the historical peoples will be
assimilated into one. When we observe that every
modem people, every part of modern society, displays
in its activity as an organ of humanity a special call-
ing, then we must also determine the importance and
function of the only ancient people which still exists
to-day, as strong and vigorous as it was in the days
of old, namely, the people of Israel.

In the organism of humanity there are no two
peoples which attract and repel each other more than

ROME AND JERUSALEM 125

the Germans and the Jews ; just as there are no two
mental attitudes which are simultaneously akin to
each other and still diametrically opposed, as the
scientific-philosophical and the religious-moral. Re-
ligion, in its higher form, is the spiritual tie which
binds the creature to the Creator, the infinite thread,
the end of which returns to its source, the bridge
which leads from one creation to the other, from
life to death, and from death back to life. It not
only brings man to know the Absolute more intimate-
ly, but it inspires and sanctifies his whole life with
the divine spirit. In religion, as in love, especially in
a religion like Judaism, which is neither one-sidedly
materialistic nor one-sidedly spiritualistic, body and
spirit merge into one another. The greatest and most
dangerous enemy of the Jewish religion in antiquity
was the religion of gross sensualism, the material love
of the Semites, namely, Baal worship. In mediaeval
ages, the enemy was represented by the embodiment
of spiritualistic love — Christianity. The Jewish peo-
ple which, thanks to its prophets of antiquity and
rabbis of the Middle Ages, kept its religion from both
extremes of degeneration, was, and is stiU to-day, that
organ of humanity which expresses the living, crea-
tive force in universal history j^ namely, the organ of
unifying and sanctifying love. This organ is akin
to the organ of thought, but is, at the same time,
opposed to it. Both draw their force from the in-
exhaustible well of life. But, while the religious
genius individualizes the infinite, philosophic, scientific
thought abstracts from life all its individual, sub-

126 ROME AND JERUSALEM

jective forms and generalizes it. Objective philoso-
phy and science have no direct connection with life;
religious teaching is intimately united with it, for
either religion is identical with the national, social
and moral life, or it is mere hypocrisy.

I have wandered from my trend of thought, I
merely wanted to explain to you why I do not ally
myself with the humanitarian aspirations which en-
deavor to obliterate all differentiation in the organ-
ism of humanity and in the name of such catch words
as "Liberty" and "Progress," build altars to arbi-
trariness and ignorance, on which our light-minded
youth offers its best energies and sacrifices.

TENTH LETTER

Another dilemma — Experimental sciences — Philos-
ophy and Religion — Progress and periodic circu-
lation — A genetic comparison of the orgamc,
cosmic life with the social — Moral necessity or
holiness — Epochs of social evolution: the pcdeon-
tological times of the formation of the embryo,
birth period and birth travail, age of maturity.

Just as you confronted me on a former occasion
with the dilemma: "Humanitarianism or National-
ism," 8ind reproached me for sympathizing with na-
tional aspirations, in spite of the fact that they con-
ti'adict the humanitarian tendencies of our time, so
do you now propound another dilemma : "Freedom or
Necessity," You think it pure fatalism to consider
humanity as a higher organism, and to observe in
the history of nations the operation of the same
eternal laws which govern the history of the earth
and Nature. You think that in cosmic and organic
life, moral laws do not obtain; here only natural
forces operate, which are predetermined, and which
can be calculated beforehand. But it is different with
social life. Even this life is regulated by natural
conditions, but it is the goal of man, who is a free
being, to overcome the fatalism of Nature with his
free-will actions, which are the basis of morality and
progress in the higher sense.

137

128 ROME AND JERUSALEM

I am pleased to see that you are well versed in the
higher philosophical conceptions of German thought.
I agree with you in your view of human life and be-
lieve, also, that moral freedom is the destiny of man
as well as of humanity. But to me this goal of hu-
manity is identical with the recognition of God, which
Judaism proclaimed at the very beginning of its his-
tory, and tO' the spread and development of which
it has always contributed, and which, since Spinoza,
it has made accessible to all historical nations. This
knowledge of God, which in its first manifestations as
the spirit of historical humanity, had not been fully
conceived, but only perceived through unanalyzed
sense impressions and intuitive experience, and which
heretofore had appeared only as wisdom and light,
must henceforth, on the basis of the already acquired
wisdom and light, progress and become an exact sci-
ence, which draws its knowledge not only from in-
ternal and external experience, but also examines
it critically.

In order to forestall your criticism of my Jewish
view of the world through arguments based upon
speculative philosophy, I have no other choice but
to prove to you that philosophic speculation is not
the last word in mental development, as little as is
industrial speculation and dominance of Capital the
goal of material development. Exact science, which
recognizes only observation, experience, work and re-
search, as the only legitimate means of acquiring
mental and material wealth, and considers speculation
to be only a combination of mental trickery and un-

ROME AND JERUSALEM 129

founded hypothesis must, in my case, become the su-
preme authority to which I appeal. I will show you,
that although exact science, which recognizes only
eternal natural laws, seems to be in apparent contra-
diction to philosophy, which raises spirit above na-
ture, and to religion, which sanctifies both spirit and
nature, insofar as it subordinates them both to a
single being, yet it finally changes into that perfect
knowledge, which conceives the laws of nature and
history as one and the same, and where all contradic-
tion disappears. But I must first make you under-
stand that even this apparent contradiction between
science and philosophy and religion had its justifica-
tion, and was a necessary stage in the history of
human development.'^

Even to-day, science, philosophy and religion are
not reconciled to one another. On the contrary, to-
day, when we are on the eve of a new historical era,
just as in the corresponding critical transition period
from antiquity to the Middle Ages, the seemingly
irreconcilable antagonism between religion, philoso-
phy and experimental science, is more marked than
it was in the heyday of the ancient or mediaeval world,
which hardly knew such an antagonism. The basis
of this theoretical contradiction, just as the practical
antagonism in social life, lies in the unequal develop-
ment of the various classes of humanity, in the rela-

1 Cf. Die genetische Weltansckawung. Also Resultat der
Philosophie und der ErfahnmgawisseTHchaften, von M. Hess,
in the periodical Der Oedanke, Vol. Ill, p. 103. See also
Epilogue 4.

130 ROME AND JERUSALEM

tions between the dominant and subservient races and
classes, in the division of material and intellectual
labor, and in the acquisitions resulting from this
division. This inequality of development, advancing
with the progress of civilization, was the rock upon
which ancient society foundered. In the material and
mental spheres, and especially in the latter, these
contrasts, which ruined the ancient world, are more
sharply defined to-day than they were at the close of
the age of antiquity, when the division of labor was
not as minutely developed as it is in our present
transition period. The result is that to-day, as in
the ancient world, not only is religion in conflict with
philosophy, but philosophy is also antagonistic to
exact science. And yet, as you will yourself admit,
truth in experimental science cannot be different from
truth in philosophy or in religion. But as long as
the reconciliation between these various spheres of
knowledge is not accomplished, it will be a difficult
matter for me to prove to you, in a few lines, or
even to make it plausible to you, that science, philoso-
phy and religion do not mutually exclude each other ;
that at the worst, they only ignore each other; and
that finally, they will support each other and with
united forces help the progress of mankind.

Let us, then, first make clear to ourselves the oft-
misunderstood concepts of "Freedom" and "Prog-
ress," which are so often carelessly used.

The belief in a rational, and therefore cognizable,
divine Law, as revealed to humanity in the teaching
and life of Judaism, this belief in a divine Providence,

ROME AND JERUSALEM 131

in a plan of creation, is not a blind, fatalistic belief
in destiny, although it excludes arbitrary and law-
less freedom. I do not assert, with the materialists,
that the organic and spiritual world is subjected,
like the inorganic world, to the same laws as an ex-
ternal mechanism. On the contrary, I affirm that
cosmic mechanical phenomena have the same plan, the
same purposiveness, and spring out of the same sacred
life as organic and spiritual phenomena. Nature and
humanity are subordinated to the same divine law.
The difference is, that Nature follows this law blindly,
while man, when perfectly developed, obeys it con-
sciously and voluntarily. Another important differ-
ence, the non-observance of which gives rise to a
misunderstanding of the concepts of "Freedom" and
"Progress," lies in this, that while the natural sphere
of life of the organic and cosmic world, which is the
basis of our social, human sphere of life, has already
accomplished its own development, humanity is still
in the midst of its life-creating process. As long
as human society is still occupied in the production
of its own organism, man, in his creative capacity,
considers himself as an irresponsible and unfettered
being, although he, like Nature, is subordinated, in
his very creation, to the eternal divine laws. The
false conception of human freedom as arbitrariness
arises mainly from the fact that we do not as yet
know either the laws regulating the development of
social life or its goal; and we cannot know this law
from experience so long as we are still in the midst
of the stream of development.

132 ROME AND JERUSALEM

But though science is still silent concerning the
law governing the development of social life, the re-
ligious genius discovered it long ago. We Jews have
always, from the beginning of our history, cherished
the faith in a future Messianic epoch. This belief is
symbolically expressed, in our historical religion, by
the Sabbath festival. The celebration of the Sabbath
is the embodiment of the great idea which has always
animated us, namely, that the future will bring about
the realization of the historical Sabbath, just as the
past gave us the natural Sabbath. In other words,
that. History, like Nature, will finally have her epoch
of harmonious perfection. The Biblical story of the
Creation is told only for the sake of the Sabbath
ideal. It tells us, in symbolic language, that when
the creation of the world of Nature was completed,
with the calling into life of the highest organic being
of the earth — ^Man — and the Creator celebrated his
natural Sabbath, there at once began the work-days
of History. Then, also, began the history of creation
of the social world, which will celebrate its Sabbath
after the completion of its world-historical labor, by
introducing the Messianic epoch. Here, in this con-
ception, you can see the high moral value of the
Mosaic genesis history, in which supematuralists have
discovered a system of science. As you see, my
esteemed friend, the very biblical Sabbath-law in
itself inspires us with a feeling of certainty that the
uniform, eternal, divine law governs alike both the
world of Nature and the world of History. It is
only to those people who cannot conceive the mani-

ROME AND JERUSALEM 133

festation of the religious genius of the Jews, that the
historical development of humanity appears as law-
less, indeterminate, infinite "Progress" when con-
trasted with the life of Nature which, though it has
not reached the end of its development, is yet gov-
erned by strict laws which are calculable. You see,
however, that this apparent difference between the
laws of Nature and those of History, is only the
result of a subjective conception which cannot rise to
an understanding of the great universal, divine laws.
We can as little think of the freedom of the created
being of History as mere lawless arbitrariness, as we
can speak of the historical progress as infinite.

We call every being free, in the natural sense,
which can develop its own destiny, its inner calling,
according to its natural inclinations, without any ex-
ternal restraint. That being is free, in the moral
sense, which follows its calling with consciousness and
will, whose will coincides with the divine law or will.
Every other form of will is only arbitrariness, which
does not partake of the divine essence of willing, but
owes its existence to passions and natural instincts.
This ability to follow the desires and passions which
lead astray from the path of reason and morality,
man possesses only when his inner essence is not suf-
ficiently developed. Man can certainly not be proud
of this negative ability, which is no more than a
disease, a disease indicating a lack of development.
This ability does not raise him above the animal, but
on the contrary puts him below it ; for animal life, as
weU as plant life, is already developed and perfected.

134. ROME AND JERUSALEM

"Man," says Goethe, "errs as long as he strives."
But there is no striving without a purpose. The goal
to which humanity, in the course of its historical
development, strives is the recognition of the laws
which govern all the three life-spheres, the social, or-
ganic and cosmic.

The law of the universe is the law of generation
and development, or to use a better-known expres-
sion, "the law of progress." The complete and per-
fect operation of this law, in all the three life-spheres,
is not yet known. In order to recognize fully the
workings of this law, we still miss a part of its field
of operation — the last phase of development of the
social life. The law of history, therefore, cannot as
yet become scientifically known. The ways of Provi-
dence are still but dimly outlined for iis. But, thanks
to the religious genius of the Jews and its divine
Revelation, which continually manifested itself in
various forms : first in prophetic utterances, then in
mysticism, and finally in philosophic speculation- — the
human spirit was constantly brought nearer to the
recognition of this law. It is, however, still necessary
that the law of history should be investigated and its
operations defined by the experimental sciences.

What modern science knows about the law of gen-
eration and development operating in the three life-
spheres, the cosmic, organic and social, I have already
discussed elsewhere.^ But I have come to the con-
clusion, through my scientific and historical studies,
that there is only one .law governing all movement
2 See Note YII at end of book.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 135

and life phenomena of all the spheres of the universe,
the organisms of the earth and the nations of history.
There is as little infinite, indeterminate progress in
the social human world, as there is in the plant and
animal world, at the end of which stands the natural,
undeveloped man. Here, as in the cosmic life-sphere,
the field of operation of which is infinite space,^
everything is generated, develops, accomplishes its
aim in life, and then decays and dissolves in order to
arise again to a new life entity in the etemaJ, infinite,
unified and divine cycle of universal life. What we
caU "progress" is no more than the development of a
being from the germ stage to the mature life stage.
At this stage each being reaches its destination.

Just as beings vary, just as the difference be-
tween the single atom and the entire world-sphere,
between the lowest organic infusorium and the high-
est earthly being — Man — is wide and great, so vari-
ous and wide is the difference between their ages of
life maturity and consequently between their goals
and destinations. But nothing living . remains un-
changed in time and space, nothing is eternal, every-
thing comes into existence, and ultimately disappears
after it has carried out its mission in order to arise
again to a new form of life.*

s Cf. Essai d'une genise comparie de la vie cosmique,
organigue et sociale, in the Revue philosophigue et religituse,
for the years 185S-18S6.

* Hess concedes the infinity of space as well as the infinity
of life in the universe, but views this latter infinity not as a
constant and given only as a recurrent and cyclical. In this
view he was preceded by HeracUtus and the Stoics, but the

136 ROME AND JERUSALEM

The great planetary bodies originated and devel-
oped in a space and time of such magnitude that we
have no standard of comparison wherewith to measure
it. Organic life, which began to develop on these
bodies after they had already cooled off and their
surface had become rigid, consumed the entire palse-
ontological age in its development and perfection.
Finally, man, who began his spiritual, humane and
social development at the ripe age of the organic
life sphere, will reach his destination only after hu-
manity will have completed its historical development
which, though it has not reached its end as yet, is
still not unlimited and infinite.

Whatever arises in time requires, of course, a cer-
tain time for its development, but it must reach its
completion and perfection in a finite and determinate
time. We recognize only one eternal, timeless and
spaceless, absolute Being. We infer its existence
through the one absolute law governing natural and
historical life, the revelation of which only Judaism
possessed. Out of the unified recognition of this
law a unified life will necessarily follow; for knowl-
edge and action, or theory and life, are inseparable.
Dualism, struggle, and even victory of virtue exist
only during the historical development of the recog-
nition of God, but not after its perfection. During
this development, we are only able to strive after
morality; but after the recognition of God, or his

novelty of the view consists in his introducing the creative
factor, and in this he is the precursor of the Bergsonian con-
ception of Creative Evolution. Cf. Introduction. — Translator.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 137

law is perfected within us, we must live morally.
This moral necessity is holiness. Judaism, which from
the beginning of its history revealed the unity and
sacredness of the divine law in Nature and history,
has, therefore, from the beginning, put forth the de-
mand that holiness should become an ideal of life, and
its prophets have always heralded the coming of the
epoch when men will arrive at the full knowledge of
God.5

We must not represent either the sacred essence of
God, or even our own God-like essence, in terms of
time and space. The perfect recognition is, in reality,
the overcoming of spatiality and temporality, namely,
the historical development of the divine law in the
cosmic, organic and social life spheres. We display
our imperfect development and immature knowledge
when we represent eternity as time continuance. Such
representations prove only that our relation to holi-
ness is not as yet perfect. The revelations of the
holy spirit point to no other future but to the mature
age of the social world. This age will begin, accord-
ing to our historical religion, with the Messianic era.
This is the era in which the Jewish nation and all
the other historical nations will arise again to a new
life, the time of the "resurrection of the dead," of
"the coming of the Lord," of the "New Jerusalem,"

5 Cf . Leviticus xix, 3 ; Jeremiah xxxi, 31, 33, 45. All pro-
phetic descriptions which Christianity has applied to itself,
really characterize the epoch of a perfected human life dom-
inated by the knowledge of God or by a perfect attitude
toward holiness.

138 ROME AND JERUSALEM

and of all the other symbolic expressions, the mean-
ing of which is no longer misunderstood.

The Messianic era is the present age, which -Began
to germinate with the teachings of Spinoza, and finally
came into historical existence with the great French
Revolution.^ With the French Revolution, there be-
gan the regeneration of those nations which had ac-
quired their national historical religion only through
the influence of" Judaism.

The social life-sphere, like the cosmic and the or-
ganic, is divided in its development into three epochs,
which in their intrinsic structure are analogous in all
the three life spheres. The first manifestation of his-
tory, that of ancient Judaism and Paganism, is the
palaeontological epoch of social life. It corresponds,
on the one hand, to the embryological epoch in the
history of development of organic life on this earth,
which terminated in the tertiary period with the birth
of the present existing organisms ; and, on the other
hand, it is analogous, in the cosmic sphere, to the
epoch of world formation, the age of comets and

« This view of the world I have already expressed in my
first work, which appeared in the year 1836. (Cf. The Sacred
History of Mankind, by a young Spinozist, where I wrote the
following! "As the appointed period of the Mediaeval world
terminated, there again rose the ancient voice of the Court of
history: 'My spirit shall not strive with Man,' Gen. vi, 3.). . . .
There followed after Spinoza no destructive flood of water,
as after Adam, or a flood of tribes and peoples as after Christ,
but out of the womb of time there burst forth a flood of
ideas, which destroyed and wiped out every obstacle in its
path. . . . With the French Revolution, the third and last
stage of development of humanity began, the process of which
is not yet completed."

ROME AND JERUSALEM 139

nebulae, an age which finfilly culminated in the birth
and rise of the astral bodies.

The second manifestation of history, that of mediae-
val Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is the epoch of
the birth of modem Society. It corresponds, in the
organic sphere, to the period of the birth of the
present existing organisms, and in the cosmic world
to the time of the birth of the planetary bodies.

The third manifestation of history, namely, the
present age of the social life-sphere, corresponds to
the epoch of perfected organisms in the organic
sphere and that of the developed planetary system
in the cosmic.

This age of maturity began, in the cosmic sphere,
with the satellites or double stars and ended with
the perfection of the solar systems; in the organic
sphere, it began with the prehistoric period, and
finally came to completion in the historic races of
mankind. In the social sphere, it is not yet com-
pleted; it is at present developing its last race and
class struggle, in order to bring about a reconcilia-
tion of aU opposites and to establish an equilibrium
between production and consvimption, and finally to
reach that perfected and harmonious course of life
which characterizes every age of maturity.

You will find, esteemed friend, the world-view, here
outlined, to be the underlying basis of all my works.
I have never held any other since I became a writer.
It is the soul of my aspirations. Its realization is
my life work, and at the opportune moment I hope
to develop it further. The narrow limits of a letter

140 ROME AND JERUSALEM

do not allow more detailed discussion of such a broad
subject. Besides, I am at present too much inter-
ested in the fate of my own people to devote myself
to the solution of a problem which, though intrinsi-
cally connected with the future of Judaism, must
first await the solution of the Jewish national problem.

ELEVENTH LETTER

Regenerated Judaism and the sacrificial ctdt — Two
thousand year yearning of the nation for a new
center in Zion — Patriotic songs and prayers — An
old legend — Signs of the times — The time of re-
turn approaches — The Eastern Question and the
Jews — A Frenchman's enthusiastic appeal.

You ask me to come back to earth from the starry
regions of philosophy to the soil of Palestine. You
certainly love the antithesis. As an offset to the
noble and exalted historical religion of my regener-
ated Judaism, you oppose the "bloody sacrificial cult"
of the ancient Israelites, and claim that orthodox
Jews will never agree to a rebuilding of the Temple
without, at the same time, reinstituting this ancient
cult. You assume, therefore, that my love for my
people will not go so far as to consent to an intro-
duction of the sacrificial cult.

I cannot grant you, however, either the supposed
conditio sine qua mora, on the part of orthodox Jews,
or your hypothetical conception of the degree of my
patriotism. In regard to my deep, reawakened,
though belated love for my people, it seems to me
that you forget that real, strong love, the love which
dominates body and spirit alike, is always blind. Its
blindness consists in this, that it is not the perfection
and excellent qualities of the beloved which are the

141

142 ROME AND JERUSALEM

object of love's desire, but the beloved being as it is,
with aU its good and bad traits. Love desires not the
object of affection because it hopes to improve its
bad traits, but because it loves the undivided, indi-
vidual entity. The scar on the face of my beloved
does not detract from my love for her, but is itself
defar to me ; dearer, perhaps, than her beautiful eyes,
for other women may have beautiful eyes, but the
scar is characteristic only of my beloved's individ-
uality. Were, really, the sacrificial cult an insepa-
rable part of Jewish nationality, I would unhesitat-
ingly accept it. But as long as I have not learned
anything better, I am convinced to the contrary.
Our exalted historical religion, a religion which has
progressed from one enlightened condition to an-
other, which breathes only love for humanity and the
knowledge of God,^ cannot have the sacrificial cult
as an essential part of its being. But in spite of my
personal conviction, let me not venture to anticipate
history. There are certain questions which a priori,
namely, in a practical way, seem to be insolvable, but

I Bunsen remarks in his Biblical work, that the world pro-
gressed from light creation to light generation. If the Rab-
binic phrase: "He prophesied but did not know what he
prophesied" is ever applicable, it is applicable here. Bunsen
hardly thought of our two thousand years' yearning for a new
creation of light for Zion, which is expressed in our daily
prayer, the Bhema, etc. To Him that maketh the great lumi-
naries we pray, "Cause a new light to shine upon Zion and
may we all be worthy soon to enjoy its brightness." This
Shema prayer is the jewel of our prayer book. Like a costly
stone framed in purest gold, is the Shema surrounded by
hymns and prayers such as Ahaba Babba, Vahabta, Ahavath
'Olam, all of which breathe love and reverence for knowledge.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 143

which, in the course of historical development, solve
themselves. To such questions belongs also the ques-
tion of cult in general, and the development of a
definite form of divine worship out of the moral, re-
ligious spirit of that nation which, at every period
of its development, was the creator of its own re-
ligion in particular.

Dr. Sachs, from whose classical work I have al-
ready cited excerpts, when speaking of the rigidity
of the rdigious norms in exile and contrasting with
this rigidity their former historical development on
the soil of Palestine, says : "The ground of a living,
historical reality is too wide to be encompassed by a
ready-made system of norms and rules ; nay, even the
fixed norms themselves cannot withstand the strong
influence of the free-moving expression of life and re-
main unchanged. The rushing current of a living
movement undermines the obstructing dikes and pene-
trates by its windings and meanderings into the hard
rocks of the shore." It is only after .the extinction
of the national life of the people, which molded the
religious norms in live fashion, that these norms have
assumed a form of rigidity. But this rigidity will
disappear from the religious life, as soon as the ex-
tinct national life comes into existence again, when
the current of a national historical development
forces itself anew into the hard and rigid religious
forms.

The holy spirit, the creative genius of the people,
out of which Jewish life and teaching arose, deserted
Israel when its children began to feel ashamed of their

144 ROME AND JERUSALEM

nationality. But this spirit will again animate our
people when it awakens to a new life, and creates new
things of which we have at present not even a con-
ception. No one can foretell what form and shape
the newborn life and spirit of the regenerated nations
will assume. As regards the religious cult, and espe-
cially the Jewish cult, it will certainly be different
from the present as well as from the ancient form.

Regarded by itself, the sacrificial cult, as described
in the Bible, does not contain anything repellent to
the spirit of humanitarianism. On the contrary, as
compared with the horrible custom of human sacri-
fices practiced by all the nations of antiquity, the
Jewish practice of animal sacrifices was a splendid
victory for the spirit of humanitarianism.^ Be that
as it may, whether animal sacrifices are regarded as
a concession on the part of the Torah to Paganism,
in order to prevent a relapse on the part of .the
people into idolatry, or whether it be maintained that
it contains a hidden symbolism, the meaning of which
is at present unknown, one thing is well established,
that the Jews, in spite of their having brought
"bloody sacrifices," possess greater abhorrence for
bloodshed and the eating of blood than modem na-
tions which consume the blood together, with the
meat, without sacrifice or ceremony. But the sacri-
ficial cult has not been practiced for the last eigh-
teen hundred years, and therefore our new-fashioned
Jews are ashamed of it. And yet it seems that even
to the present day, sacrifice is the natural expression

2 See Note VIII at end of book.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 145

of the pious spirit of the child. Goethe tells us, that
in his childhood, the only way he could satisfy his
religious craving was by means of sacrifice to the
Eternal, which he performed by lighting a bonfire
and throwing therein his favorite toys.

On the other hand, the prophets of old, and even
the rabbis of the Middle Ages, never considered the
sacrificial cult essential to the Jewish religion as do
modern rigidly orthodox Jews, who look upon it as
inseparable from our national restoration. Rabbi
Jochanan ben Zakkai declared, basing his utterance
on the prophetic saying in Hosea vi, 6, that sacrifices
can be substituted by benevolence,^ and a number of
modern rabbinical authorities, who do not recognize
the right of the modem descendants of Aaron to the
priesthood, have yet declared themselves zealously for
the restoration of a Jewish State.* The cult that we
are going to introduce in the New Jerusalem can and
must, for the present, remain an open question. Rome
was not built in a day, and the New Jerusalem must
needs take time for its construction.

What we have to do at present for the regeneration
of the Jewish nation is, first, to keep alive the hope
- of the political rebirth of our people, and next, to
reawaken that hope where it slumbers. When polit-
ical conditions in the Orient shape themselves so as
to permit the organization of a beginning of the
restoration of a Jewish State, this beginning will ex-

3 For the saying of Ben Zakkai, see Baba Batlira, 10b. —
Traiislator.
* See Note X at end of book.

146 ROME AND JERUSALEM

press itself in the founding of Jewish colonies in the
land of their ancestors, to which enterprise France
will undoubtedly lend a hand. You know how sub-
stantial was the share of the Jews in the subscriptions
to the fund raised for the benefit of the Syrian war
victims. It was Cremieux who took the initiative in
the matter, the same Cremieux who twenty years ago
traveled with Sir Moses Montefiore to Syria in order
to seek protection for the Jews against the persecu-
tions of the Christians. In the Journal des Debats,
which very seldom accepts poems for publication,
there appeared, at the time of the Syrian expedition,
a poem by Leon Halevi, who at the time, perhaps,
thought as little of the rebirth of Israel as Cremieux,
yet his beautiful stanzas could not have been pro-
duced otherwise than in a spirit of foreseeing this
regeneration. When the poet of the Schwalben
mournfully complains:

Where tarries the hero? Where tarries the wise?
Who will, O my people, revive you anew ;
Who will save you, and give you again
A place in the sun?

The French poet answers his query with enthusi-
astic confidence:

Ye shall be reborn, ye fearsome cities !

A breath of security will always hover

O'er your banks where our colors have fluttered!

Come again a call supreme!

Au revoiT is not adieu —

France is all to those she loves.

The future belongs to God.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 147

Alexander Weill sang about the same time :

There is a people stiff of neck.

Dispersed from the Euphrates to the Ehine,

Its whole life centered in a Book —

Ofttimes bent, yet ever straightened;

Braving hatred and contempt.

It only dies to live again

In nobler form.

France, beloved friend, is the savior who will re-
store our people to its place in universal history.

Allow me to recall to your mind an old legend which
you have probably heard in your younger days. It
runs as follows:

"A knight who went to the Holy Land to assist
in the liberation of Jerusalem, left behind him a very
dear friend. While the knight fought valiantly on
the field of battle, his friend spent his time, as here-
tofore, in the study of the Talmud, for his friend was
none other than a pious rabbi.

"Months afterward, when the knight returned
home, he appeared suddenly at midnight, in the study
room of the rabbi, whom he found, as usual, absorbed
in his Talmud. 'God's greetings to you, dear old
friend,' he said. 'I have returned from the Holy
Land and bring you from there a pledge of our friend-
ship. What I gained by my sword, you are striving
to obtain with your spirit. Our ways lead to the
same goal.' While thus speaking, the knight handed
the rabbi a rose of Jericho.

"The rabbi took the rose and moistened it with his

148 ROME AND JERUSALEM

tears, and immediately the withered rose began to
bloom again in its full glory and splendor. And the
rabbi said to the knight : 'Do not wonder, my friend,
that the withered rose bloomed again in my hands.
The rose possesses the same characteristics as our
people : it comes to life again at the touch of the
warm breath of love, in spite of its having been torn
from its own soil and left to wither in foreign lands.
So will Israel bloom again in youthful splendor; and
the spark, at present smoldering under the ashes, will
burst once more into a bright flame.' "

The routes of the rabbi and the knight, dear friend,
are meeting to-day. As the rabbi in the story sym-
bolizes our people, so does the knight of the legend
signify the French people which in our days, as in
the Middle Ages, sent its brave soldiers to Syria and
"prepared in the desert the way of the Lord."

Have you never read the words of the Prophet
Isaiah: "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith
your God. Speak ye comfortably to the heart of
Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that the appointed time
has come, that her iniquity is pardoned ; for she hath
received at the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
The voice of one that crieth in the wilderness, pre-
pare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the
desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall
be exalted, and every mountain and hill shaU. be made
low, and the crooked shall be made a straight place,
and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the
Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it

ROME AND JERUSALEM 149

together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken
it."5

Do you not believe that in these words, with which
the second Isaiah opened his prophecies, as well as in
the words with which the Prophet Obadiah closed
his prophecy,® the conditions of our own time are
graphically pictured? Was not help given to Zion
in order to defend and establish the wild mountaineers
there? Are not things being prepared there and
roads leveled, and is not the road of civilization .being
built in the desert in the form of the Suez Canal
works and the railroad which will connect Asia and
Europe? They are not thinking at present of the
restoration of our people. But you know the prov-
erb, "Man proposes and God disposes." Just as in
the West they once searched for a road to India, and
incidentally discovered a new world, so will our lost
fatherland be rediscovered on the road to India and
China that is now being built in the Orient. Do you
still doubt that France will help the Jews to found
colonies which may extend from Suez to Jerusalem,
and from the banks of the Jordan to the Coast of
the Mediterranean? Then pray read the work which
appeared shortly after the massacres in Syria, by
the famous publisher, Dentu, under the title The New
Oriental Problem. The author hardly wrote it at the
request of the French government, but acted in ac-
cordance with the spirit of the French nation when

s Isaiah xl, 1-5.

« "And saviors shall come up on Mount Zion to judge the
mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord's."

150 ROME AND JERUSALEM

he urged our brethren, not on religious grounds, but
from purely political and humanitarian motives, to
restore their ancient StateJ

I may, therefore, recommend this work, written,
not by a Jew, but by a French patriot, to the atten-
tion of our modern Jews, who plume themselves on
borrowed French humanitarianism. I will quote here,
in translation, a few pages of this work, The New
Eastern Question, by Ernest Laharanne.^

"In the discussion of these new Eastern complica-
tions, we reserved a special place for Palestine, in
order to bring to the attention of the world the im-
portant question, whether ancient . Judsea can once
more acquire its former place under the sun.

"This question is not raised here for the first time.
The redemption of Palestine, either by the efforts
of international Jewish bankers, or the nobler method,
of a general subscription in which all the Jews should
participate, has been discussed many times. Why
is it that this patriotic project has not as yet been
realized.'' It is certainly not the fault of pious Jews
that the plan was frustrated, for their hearts beat
fast and their eyes fill with tears at the thought of
a return to Jerusalem.^

7 1 have heard that an American writer has discussed this
question from a practical point of view, for a number of
years. Also representative Englishmen have repeatedly de-
clared themselves in favor of the restoration of the Jewish
State.

8 See Note IX at end of book.

9 My friend, Armond L., who traveled for several years
through the Danube Principalities, told me that the Jews were

ROME AND JERUSALEM 161

"If the project is still unrealized, the cause is
easily cognizable. The Jews dare not think of the
possibility of possessing again the land of their
fathers. Have we not opposed to their wish our
Christian veto.!" Would we not continually molest
the legal proprietor when he will have taken posses-
sion of his ancestral land, and in the name of piety
make him feel that his ancestors forfeited the title
to their land on the day of the Crucifixion?

"Our stupid Ultramontanism has destroyed the
possibility of a regeneration of Judaea, by making the
present of the Jewish people barren and unproduc-
tive. Had the city of Jerusalem been rebuilt by
means of Jewish capital, we would have heard
preachers prophesying, even in our progressive nine-
teenth century, that the end of the world is at hand
and predictions of the coming of the Anti-Christ.
Yes, we have lived to see such a state of affairs, now

moved to tears when he announced to them the end of their
suffering, with the words "The time of the return approaches."
The more fortunate Occidental Jews do not know with what
longing the Jewish masses of the East await the final re-
demption from the two thousand year exile. They know not
that the patriotic Jew cannot suppress his cry of anguish at
the length of the exile, even in the midst of his festive songs,
as, for instance, the patriotic poem which is read on Chanukah,
closes with the mournful call:

"For salvation is delayed for us and there is no end to the
days of evil."

"They asked me," continued my friend, "what are the indica-
tions that the end of the exile is approaching?" "These," I
answered, "that the Turkish and the papal powers are on the
point of collapse."

162 ROME AND JERUSALEM

that Ultramontanism has made its last stand in ora-
torical eloquence. In the sacred beehive of religion,
we still hear a continuous buzzing of those insects
who would rather see a mighty sword in the hands
of the barbarians, than greet the resurrection of na-
tions and hail the revival of a free and great thought
inscribed on their banner. This is undoubtedly the
reason why Israel did not make any attempt to be-
come master of his own flocks, why the Jews, after
wandering for two thousand years, are not in a posi-
tion to shake the dust from their weary feet. The
continuous, inexorable demands that would be made
upon a Jewish settlement, the vexatious insults that
would be heaped upon them and which would finally
degenerate into persecutions, in which fanatic Chris-
tians and pious Mohammedans would unite in broth-
erly accord — these are the reasons, more potent than
the rule of the Turks, that have deterred the Jews
from attempting to rebuild the Temple of Solomon,
their ancient home, and their State.

"But if this cause explains the lack of courage on
the part of patriotic Jews, we cannot refrain from
accusing the so-called progressive Jews of indifference
to the fate of the Jewish people ; for whenever a pro-
ject for the restoration of the Jewish State is being
considered, they display toward it a naivete that
neither does credit to their reasoning power nor to
their heart. The explanations offered by them on
such occasions are inadmissible both from a moral
and from a political point of view. A declaration,
composed by the representatives of the progressive

ROME AND JERUSALEM 158

Jews at their meeting in Frankfort, contains the fol-
lowing Article:

"We acknowledge as our fatherland only the land
where we are born and to which we are inseparably
united by the bonds of citizenship." ^^

"No member of the Jewish race can renounce the
incontestible and fundamental right of his people,
without at the same time denying the history of the
Jews and his own ancestors. Such an act is espe-
cially unseemly, at a time when political conditions
in Europe will not only not obstruct the restoration
of a Jewish State, but will rather facilitate its reali-
zation. What European power to-day would oppose
the plan that the Jews, imited through a Congress,
should buy back their ancient fatherland? Who
would object if the Jews flung to decrepit old Turkey
a few handfuls of gold, and said to her: 'Give me
back my home and use this money to consolidate the
other parts of your tottering empire?'

"No objections would be raised to the realization
of such a plan, and Judasa would be permitted to
extend its boundaries from Suez to the harbor of
Smyrna, including the entire area of the western

10 1 do not know to which declaration the author refers. It
is perhaps to the one of the Rabbinical conference which took
place in the year 1845 at Frankfort and which accomplished
as much as a similar Grerman meeting held in the same place
a. few years later. However, the declaration referred to is in
perfect accord with the sentiments of the German progressive
Jews. There was not a voice raised among them in behalf of
the restoration of the Jewish nationality; and if such a. voice
is heard from other quarters, it is received by them not only
with indifference, but with scorn.

154 ROME AND JERUSALEM

Lebanon range. For we will not be eternally engaged
in war; the time must come when this wholesale
massacre, usually accompanied by the booming of
cannon, will be condemned by humanity, so that the
nation which desires conquest in addition to com-
merce, will not dare to carry out its designs. We
must therefore prepare and break new ground for the
peaceful struggles of industry. European industry
has daily to search for new markets as an outlet for
its products. We have no time to lose. The time
has arrived when it is imperative to call the ancient
nations back to life, so as to open new highways and
byways for European civilization."

In another passage, the author speaks with so much
enthusiasm, love and reverence for the Jews, that
what he says overshadows all that has ever been said
by a Jew in praise of his own people.

"There is a mysterious power which rules the
destiny of humanity. Once the hand of the Infinite
Power has signed the decree of a nation to be ban-
ished forever from the face of the earth, the fate
of that nation is irrevocable. But when we see a
nation, torn from its cradle in its early childhood,
and after having tasted all the bitterness of exile is
brought back to its land, only to be tossed again
into the wide world; and that nation, during the
eighteen centuries of its wandering has displayed such
remarkable powers of endurance, suffering age-long
martyrdom without extinguishing in its heart the fire
of patriotism, then we must admit that we are stand-

ROME AND JERUSALEM 155

ing before an infinite mystery, unparalleled in the
history of humanity."

In these few words there is concentrated the whole
history of Israel.

What an example! What a race. You Roman
conquerors led your legions in battle against the
already ruined Zion and drove the children of Israel
out of their ancestral land. Your European, Asiatic
and African barbarians lent your ear to superstition
and pronounced your curse upon them. You feudal
kings branded the Jews with the mark of shame — the
Jews, who, in spite of all your persecutions, supplied
you with the necessary gold wherewith to arm your
vassals and serfs and who provided your markets
with goods. You grand Inquisitors, searched among
the children of the dispersed people of Israel for your
richest victims, with whom to fill your prisons and
coffers, and in order to feed your auto-da-fe's — and
you revoked the edict of Nantes ^^ and drove out of
the land the remnant that had escaped the destruction
of Apostolic fanaticism. And finally, you modem
nations have denied these indefatigable workers and
industrious merchants civil rights. What persecu-
tions ! What tears ! What blood you children of
Israel have shed in the last eighteen hundred years !
But you sons of Judaea, in spite of all suffering are
stiU here! You have overcome the innumerable ob-

11 The edict of Nantes guaranteed the Protestants of France
liberty of conscience, freedom of worship and representation
in Parliament; it was issued by Henry IV in 1693, but re-
voked by Louis XIV in 1685. — Tranilator.

156 ROME AND JERUSALEM

stacks which the hatred, contempt, fanaticism and
barbarism of the centuries have placed in your way.
The hand of the Eternal has surely guided you.

France finally freed you. On the eve of the great
world epoch, France, while shattering its own chains,
called all nations and also you, into freedom. You
became citizens and now you are brothers. The year
1789 was the first step in the process of rehabilita-
tion. Pursuing its mission, liberation,-*^^ the eye of
France searched after all persecuted races, and it
found you in your ghetto and shattered its doors
forever.^^ France invited you to its Chambers. You
participated in its triumphs; you shared its happi-
ness and its reverses. You have raised your voice
on the day of council, shouted for joy at our vic-

12 Under the short Napoleonic reign over Central and
Southern Europe, despotism and autocracy were crushed every-
where; either republics or constitutional monarchies were sub-
stituted, and the Jews were granted equal rights, which were
later revoked when the old dynasties were restored to the
throne. — Translator.

13 The old Beneday, who was still alive in 1843, at the time
of the publication of the first Rhenische Zeitung used to come,
from time to time, to the office of that paper to converse with
the members of the staff; and on one of these occasions he
told us the story, which I had really heard before, how he, at
the commission of the first French Republic had laid the ax
at the gates of the Bonn Ghetto. Beneday could hardly con-
ceive how his son Jacob could, at one and the same time, be a
liberal and yet unfriendly toward the French. I comforted
him by pointing to the progressive German Jews, who in
reality have to thank the French for whatever political and
civil rights they possess here or elsewhere in Germany, and yet
rail, in company with the Germans, against the "hereditary
enemy."

ROME AND JERUSALEM 157

tories and wept at our defeats. You are good citizens
and devoted brothers. France will perhaps be to you
a lighthouse of salvation, a rock against your ene-
mies, who are also the enemies of our modern insti-
tutions. It will defend you against the libelers of
your nationality, your character and your religion.

You are an elemental force and we bow our heads
before you. You were powerful in the early period
of your history, strong even after the destruction
of Jerusalem, and mighty during the Middle Ages,
when there were only two dominant powers — the
Inquisition and its Cross, and Piracy with its Cres-
cent. You have escaped destruction in your long
dispersion, in spite of the terrible tax you have paid
during eighteen centuries of persecution. But what
is left of your nation is mighty enough to rebuild the
gates of Jerusalem. This is your mission.

Providence would not have prolonged your exist-
ence until to-day, had it not reserved for you the
holiest of all missions. The hour has struck for the
resettlement of the banks of the Jordan. The his-
torical books of the royal prophets can, perhaps, be
written again only by you.

A great calling is reserved for you: to be a living
channel of commimication between three continents.
You should be the bearers of civilization to the primi-
tive people of Asia, and the teachers of the European
sciences to which your race has contributed so much.
You should be the mediators between Europe and
far Asia, open the roads that lead to India and China
— those unknown regions which must ultimately be

168 ROME AND JERUSALEM

thrown open to civilization. You will come to the
land of your fathers crowned with the crown of age-
long martyrdom, and there, finally, you will be com-
pletely healed from all your ills ! Your capital will
again bring the wide stretches of barren land under
cultivation; your labor and industry will once more
turn the ancient soil into fruitful valleys, reclaim the
flat lands from the encroaching sands of the desert,
and the world will again pay its homage to the oldest
of peoples.

The time has arrived for you to reclaim, either by
way of compensation or by other means, your ancient
fatherland from Turkey, which has devastated
it for ages. You have contributed enough to the
cause of civilization and have helped Europe on the
path of progress, to make revolutions and carry them
out successfully. You must henceforth think of
yourselves, of the valleys of Lebanon and the plains
of Gennesareth.

March forward! At the sight of your rejuvena-
tion, our hearts will beat fast, and our armies will
stand by you, ready to help.

March forward, Jews of aU lands! The ancient
fatherland of yours is calling you, and we will be
proud to open its gates for you.

March forward, ye sons of the martyrs ! The har-
vest of experience which you have accumulated in
your long exile, will help to bring again to Israel
the splendor of the Davidic days and rewrite that
part of history of which the monoliths of Semiramis
are the only witness.

ROME AND JERUSALEM 169

March forward, ye noble hearts! The day on
which the Jewish tribes return to their fatherland
wiU be epoch-making in the history of humanity. Oh,
how will the East tremble at your coming! How
quickly, under the influence of labor and industry,
will the enervation of the people vanish, in the land
where voluptuousness, idleness and robbery have held
sway for thousands of years.

You will become the moral stay of the East. You
have written the Book of books. Become, then, the
educators of the wild Arabian hordes and the African
peoples. Let the ancient wisdom of the East, the
revelations of the Zend, the Vedas, as well as the
more modern Koran and the Gospels, group them-
selves around your Bible. They will all become puri-
fied from every superstition and all will proclaim
alike the principles of freedom, humanity, peace and
unity. You are the triumphal arch of the future
historical epoch, under which the great covenant of
humanity will be written and sealed in your presence
as the witnesses of the past and future. The Biblical
traditions which you will revive, will also sanctify
anew our Occidental society and destroy the weed
of materialism together with its roots.

And when you shall have made this wonderful
progress, remember,, ye sons of Israel, remember
Modem France which, frcim the moment of its re-
birth, has loved you' continually and has never wearied
of defending you.

TWELFTH LETTER

The beginning of the end — Solidarity of the Jews —
Philanthropic illusions — The social ammal king-
dom — The nurses of progress — The faithful watch-
men of the sacred sepulchre of Jewish nationality
— The last catastrophe.

It seems that extracts from the French pamphlet
which I quoted to you, have awakened in you new
thoughts. You think that the Christian nations will
certainly not object to the restoration of the Jewish
State, for they will thereby rid their respective coun-
tries of a foreign population which is a thorn in their
side. Not only Frenchmen, but Grermans and Eng-
lishmen, have expressed themselves more than once in
favor of the return of the Jews to Palestine. You
quote an Englishman who endeavored to prove, by
Biblical evidence, the ultimate return of the Jews to
Palestine and simultaneously also the conversion of
the Jews to Christianity. Another Englishman at-
tempts to prove that the present English dynasty is
directly descended from the house of David and that
the stone which plays such an important role in the
coronation of English kings is the same on which
Jacob's head rested when he dreamt of the famous
ladder. A third magnanimously offers all the Eng-

160

ROME AND JERUSALEM 161

lish ships for the purpose of conveying to Palestine,
free of charge, all the Jews who want to return there.
These sentiments, however, seem to be, according to
you, only a milder form of the desire, which in for-
mer ages expressed itself in frequent banishments of
the Jews from Christian lands, for which mildness
our people ought to be thankful. On the other hand,
you see in such projects only a piece of foUy which,
in its final analysis, leads either to religious or secu-
lar insanity, and should not be taken into considera-
tion. Such desires, moreover, if they come from
pious Christians, would be opposed by all Jews. On
the other hand, if pious Jews were the projectors,
all Christians would object to the restoration; for as
the latter would only consent to a return to Pales-
tine on condition that the ancient sacrificial cult be
reintroduced in the New Jerusalem, so would the
former give its assistance to the plan, only on con-
dition that we Jews would bring our national religion
as a sacrifice to Christianity at the "Holy Sepul-
chre." And thus, you conclude, all the national as-
pirations of the Jews must inevitably founder on the
rock of differences of opinion.

Now if rigid Christian dogma and inflexible Jewish
orthodoxy could never be revived by the living cur-
rent of history, they would certainly place an insur-
mountable obstacle to the realization of our patri-
otic aspirations. The thought of repossessing our
ancient fatherland can, therefore, be taken under
serious consideration, only when this rigidity of
orthodox Jews and Christians alike, will have re-

162 ROME AND JERUSALEM

laxed. And it is beginning to relax already, not only
with the progressive elements, but even with pious
Jews and Christians. Moreover, the Talmud, which
is' the corner-stone of modem Jewish orthodoxy, long
ago counseled obedience to the dictates of life.

If Jewish Nationalism is a live movement, it will
not be deterred by any doubts that may arise from
devoting its energy toward obtaining political regen-
eration. Though the time '.'when the wolf shall dwell
with the lamb" has not yet arrived, the ruling major-
ity and the oppressed minority h&,ve both alike lost
their wolfish appetite and sheepish patience. Re-
ligious toleration has become a more general ' article
of creed than any other dogma. Besides, I always
think, as I have already remarked, of the future cult
of all regenerated nations as beijig different in form
from the present religious cults, which have come
down to us from a time when folk individualities were
repressed. And finally, I must emphasize it again,
our future religious worship, like those of other na-
tions, will not precede the regeneration but follow it.
The main problem of the Jewish national movement
is not of a religious nature but centers around one
point, namely, on how to awaken the patriotic senti-
ments in the hearts of our progressive Jews, and how
to liberate the Jewish masses, by means of this patri-
otism, from a spirit-deadening formalism. If we
succeed in this beginning, then no matter how difficult
the practical realization of our plan may be, the
difficulties will be overcome by experience itself. It
is only when we find that the Jewish heart is dead,

ROME AND JERUSALEM 163

that the Jews are no more capable of patriotic inspi-
ration, that we shall have to despair of our hope
which, as every great historical ideal, cannot be real-
ized without a tremendous struggle.

The Jews*liave enough common sense, in spite of
misunderstood enlightenment and orthodoxy, not to
be misled by religious haziness and fanaticism which
have no basis in the present life. But it is just this
sober sense of reality that our race possesses in a
high degree, which will finally win over those of our
brethlren, whether progressive or orthodox, who still
possess a Jewish heart, to the national cause which
has its roots deep in the practical soil of reality.

The objections of progressive Jews to the restora-
tion of the Jewish State have their ultimate ground,
not in that spiritual education which does not shrink
from the diflBculties lying in the path of a great work,
nor calculates beforehand the amount of sacrifice
required in the realization of the same, but they rest
in the moral and intellectual narrow-mindedness which
is unable to rise to a high humanitarian standpoint,
from which one can view the depth of the misfortune
of the people as well as the means of their salvation.
The Jewish religion, thought Heine, and with him all
the enlightened Jews, is more of a misfortune than a
religion. But in vain do the progressive Jews per-
suade themselves that they can escape this misfortune
through enlightenment or conversion. Every Jew is,
whether he wishes it or not, solidly united with the
entire nation ; and only when the Jewish people will
be freed from the burden which it has borne so hero-

164 ROME AND JERUSALEM

ically for thousands of years, will the burden of Juda-
ism be removed from the shoulders of these progres-
sive Jews, who will ultimately form only a small
minority. We will all then carry the yoke of the
"Kingdom of Heaven" until the end.

At the height of the movement of enlightenment,
when everybody was intoxicated by it, people could
be easily fascinated by the illusion that it is best for
the entire Jewish people to surrender its national
religion and devote itself to humanitarianism, a cult
which, according to them, was destined to absorb,
Judaisin as well as all individual life. To-day, even
the most superficial rationalist cannot cherish such
a philanthropic illusion. Though lacking a deeper
conception of life, of Nature and history, the his-
torical movement among our contemporary Jews has
accomplished its purpose of opening the eyes of the
rationalists ; for even in the Occident, where the Jews
are closely united to the general culture by a tliou-
sand bonds, the injury done to the ancient Jewish
cult by enlightenment is slight.

Even to-day, the great majority of Occidental
Jews pay homage to their ancient religion. Neither
emancipation nor Christian proselytism, with its bait
of material advantages, has succeeded in estranging
the majority of Jews from their traditions. On the
contrary, there have appeared of late, even among
those who were formerly estranged from Judaism,
men who display strong sympathies for the ancient
Jewish mode of life. The leveling tendencies of the
assimilationists have remained and will always re-

ROME AND JERUSALEM 166

main without influence on those Jews who constitute
the great Jewish masses.

The masses are never moved to progress by mere
abstract conceptions; the springs of action lie far
deeper than even the socialist revolutionaries think.
With the Jews, more than with other nations which,
though oppressed, yet live on their own soil, all polit-
ical and social progress must necessarily be preceded
by national independence. A common, native soil
is a primary condition, if there is to be introduced
among the Jews better arid more progressive rela-
tions between Cajpital and Labor. The social man,
just as the social plant and animal, needs for his
growth and development a wide, free soil ; without it,
he sinks to the status of a parasite, which feeds at
the expense of others. The parasitic way of exist-
ence has played an important role in the development
of human history and is by no means restricted to the
Jews. As long as science and industry were not sufli-
ciently developed, the land in the possession of any
nation was never large enough to maintain the entire
population; and the nations were therefore forced,
either to make war one upon the other and thus
acquire slaves, or to divide their own population into
ruling and serving classes. But this regime, wliich
was ba?ed upon the exploitation of men, collapsed as
soon as modern science and industry began to domi-
nate the world.

The civilized nations are at present making prep-
arations for a common exploitation of Nature. This
will be carried on by means of labor based on scien-

166 ROME AND JERUSALEM

tific principles, all social parasites being excluded.
They are preparing themselves for the new era
through struggles for free national soils, by attempts
at abolishing race and class rule, by endeavoring to
organize an Association and by the cooperation of
all the forces of production. In this Association,
the antagonism between capitalistic speculation and
productive labor, as well as the contrast between
philosophic speculation and scientific work, .will
simultaneously disappear. I know well that the need
of wholesome and just labor conditions, which should
be based solely on the exploitation of Nature by
man, is also strongly felt in Jewry. I know of the
great efforts which are being exerted on the part of
the Jews to train our younger generation as useful
laborers. But I know also that the Jews in exile, at
least the majority of them, cannot devote themselves
successfully to productive labor; in the first place,
because they lack the most necessary condition — an
ancestral soil; and, secondly, because they cannot
assimilate with the peoples among whom they live
without at the same time denying their national re-
ligion and tradition. Those commendable efforts to
improve the condition of Jewish labor will, therefore,
while they indirectly cause the destruction of the
Jewish cult, be' as fruitless, on the whole, as the
endeavors of the Reform movement, which leads
directly to the same results. In exile, the Jewish
people cannot be regenerated. Reform or philan-
thropy can only bring it to apostasy and to nothing
else, but in this no reformer, not even a tyrant, will

ROME AND JERUSALEM 167

ever succeed. The Jewish people will participate in
the great historical movement of present-day human-
ity only when it will have its own fatherland. As
long as the great Jewish masses remain in their low
position, even the relatively few Jews who have sur-
rendered their national traditions, in order to escape
the fate of the Jewish people, will be more painfully
affected by the position of the Jews than the masses,
who feel themselves only unfortunate but not de-
graded. Hence, no Jew, whether orthodox or not,
can conscientiously refrain from cooperating with
the rest for the elevation of the entire Jewry. Every
Jew, even the converted, should cling to the cause and
labor for the regeneration of Israel.

If one appreciates fully the infinitely tragic role
which the Jewish people has thus far played in his-
tory, he must also inevitably perceive the only way
that will bring salvation to our misery. This solu-
tion is at present not as impractical as it may look
at first sight. It is in accordance with the sympa-
thies of the French people and with the interests of
French politics, that after France's victorious armies
shall have overthrown the modern Nebuchadnezzar,
France will extend its work of redemption also to the
Jewish nation. It is to the interest of France to see ■^ ' ^
that the road leading to India and China should be '^ '/7,((
settled by a people which will be loyal to the cause ^^v-T'
of France to the end, in order that it may fulfil the
historical mission which has fallen to it as a legacy
from the great Reyolutipi;., But is there any other
nation more adapted to carry out this mission than

168 ROME AND JERUSALEM

Israel, which was appointed for the same mission
from the beginning of its history?

"Frenchmen and Jews!" I hear you exclaim. "If
so, then the Christian German reactionaries were
right in their denunciations of the Jews !" Yes, my
dear friend, the animal instinct which scents the
enemy in the distance is always infallible. Reaction
has everywhere recognized its mortal enemy in those
who stand midway between reaction and revolution
and who act as the midwife of progress, the giant
who is to smite reaction over its head. For it is a law
of organic and social life history, that the mediate
being whose existence is limited to the transition
epoch, should pave the way from the imperfect to
the more, perfect and higher scales of life.

Frenchmen fend Jews! It'seems that in all things
they were created for' one another. They resemble
one another in their humane and national aspirations,
and differ only in such qualities as can only be com-
plemented by another nation, but which are never
united in one and the same people. The French peo-
ple excel in alertness, in the humanistic and sympa-
thetic quality to assimilate all elements ; the Jews, on
the other hand, possess more ethical seriousness than
the French, and in meeting other types, the Jew will
rather impress his stamp on his environment than be
molded by it. The French can rule the world, be-
cause they absorbed the best of the entire human
race. The Jews can only be masters of their own
floct, and with the holy fire which they have kindled
in their own midst, they will warm and enlighten a

ROME AND JERUSALEM 169

world composed of heterogeneous elemelits, and thus
prevent thi^ world from disintegrating into its ele-
ments and relapsing into the chaos out of which it
was raised once before by Judaism.

The generous help which France has extended to
civilized peoples toward the restoration of their na-
tionality, will be remembered longer by our nation
than by any other. How easily will we come to an
understanding with this humane French people about
our religion and its sacred places in -Palestine. But
matters have not gone so far yet. The Jewish people
must first show itself worthy of the regeneration of
its historical cult; it must first feel the necessity of
a national restoration if it would reach that point.
Until then we need not think about building the
Temple; we must win the heart of -our brethren for
the great work which will finally bring eternal glory
to the Jewish nation and salvation to humanity.

For^ Jewish colonization on the road to India and
China, there is no lack, either of Jewish laborers or
of Jewish talent and capital. Let only the germ be
planted under the protection of the European pow-
ers, and the tree of a new life will spring forth by
itself and bear excellent fruit.

You smile at my innocent belief in Jewish patriot-
ism. You have undoubtedly read the Ghetto Scenes
and you will possibly, remind me of the hero, Mendel
Wilna, who possessed a fixed idea to persuade the
Rothschilds to devote their capital and energy to the
rebuilding of the Holy City and Temple, but who
only succeeded in winning over a child to his pious

170 ROME AND JERUSALEM

belief. The child, when he grew up and attended the
University became so wise that he concluded that
only children and fools can dream of rebuilding Jeru-
salem. By quoting this episode, you wish to demon-
strate that the Jewish poet did not see any deeper
meaning in the patriotic feeling of pious Jews than
considering them merely as a kind of Jewish Christ-
mas trees, able to amuse only little children and
elderly fools. All this, dearest friend, is true, but
it applies only to the modern poet who is influenced
by the Germanic spirit and not to a poet like Judah
Haleyi, who poured out his heart's blood in his Jew-
ish poetry. Halevi, actuated by longing for the land
of his dreams, grasped the pilgrim's staif, only to find
a grave for himself in his beloved land. Nor does
the poet's description characterize real Jewish life.
You certainly remember the proverb: "Children and
fools tell the truth." The thought which inspired the
nervous Mendel Wilna and little Moischele, has been
the fundamental thought of all pious Jews from the
time of the destruction of Jerusalem until the present
day. And there are such Jews — ^let it not worry Mr.
Kompert, even among the Rothschild brothers.

But you do not need to overlook the fact that
Kompert puts the denial of Jewish nationality into
the mputh of a student who, when doubting the regen-
eration of the Jewish people, only reflects the scep-
tical spirit of the age. What progressive Jew, espe-
cially in Germany, would have dared within recent
years to declare himself for the restoration of our
nation and face his own friends, who would undoubt-

ROME AND JERUSALEM 171

edly have declared him mad? In addition, I wish to
remark that Kompert bestowed upon the Jewish stu-
dent, who is theoretically indifferent, but practically
devoted to the Jewish nation, — not without purpose
— a Bohemian friend who is theoretically inspired by
the example of Huss and Zizka, but who becomes
ultimately a well-to-do monk, and exchanges the cup
and sword for the cross and incense bowl. I do not
find, therefore, in Kompert's description of the pro-
gressive Jews, any more of that extreme indifference
with which, until recently, a great part of German
Jewry was charged. To-day, as I have said, we can-
not accuse them of it without reserve. Remember,
dear friend, that it was you who criticised my severe
judgment of the progressive Grerman Jews, a criti-
cism to which I must do justice now. I have adapted
the wholesome reaction of Jewish patriotism and
asserted it in face of an extreme indifference which had
its seat more in "fashion" and in the spirit of the age,
than in the heart of the people ; and finally it struck
root. The longing for the land of our forefathers
and the desire to return there which is so strongly
displayed by our pious brethren, who even in our
days visit the Holy Land in order to be buried there,
has finally affected even the heart of our progressive
Jews. The frequent journeys to Jerusalem, the sup-
port given to our brethren there, the help extended
to the educational and charitable institutions in Pal-
estine, all these do not come only from orthodox
Jews. These earnest and lasting endeavors to help
our brethren in the Orient show that to-day there is

172 ROME AND JERUSALEM

no lack of good will among all classes of Jews, to
alleviate the misery of their brethren in the Holy
Land. This will need only to ripen in the formation
of a plan to carry out the great patriotic work.

In Jerusalem, as everywhere, our Jewish philan-
thropists are confronted with insurmountable difB-
culties whenever they wish to solve the historical mis-
fortune of our brethren by means of charitable insti-
tutions and distributions of alms, or when they ex-
pect to introduce moral-spiritual progress among the
Oriental Jews by means of theoretical educational
doctrines, without any social basis. The acquisition
of a common ancestral soil, the organization of the
work on a legal basis, the founding of Jewish soci-
eties of agriculture, industry and commerce on the
Mosaic, i.e., social principles, these are the founda-
tions on which Oriental Jewry will rise again, and in
its rise, will rekindle the glimmering fire of the old
Jewish patriotism and light the way to a new life for
the Jewry of the entire world. On the common
ground of Jewish patriotism, aU Jewish classes will
meet, orthodox and progressive, rich and poor. They
will recognize themselves as the descendants of those
heroes who fought the mightiest and the most civ-
ilized nations of antiquity : the Egyptians, Assyrians,
Greeks and Romans, and succeeded in carrying on
their struggle to the very end of the ancient world,
which they alone survived. They will look upon
themselves as children of that race which, unlike any
other people of history, has suffered a two thousand
year martyrdom, and which has always carried aloft

ROME AND JERUSALEM 173

the banner of nationality, namely, the Book of the
Law.

I wiU have to interrupt our correspondence for the
present, in order to quote to you from a Hebrew
work recently published by an extremely pious
scholar. The author, after thoroughly discussing
the question of Jewish Nationalism from a Talmudic
point of view, arrives at the same results that the
Christian Frenchman reached in his brochure A New
Oriental Question, and to which I heartily subscribe
in all detail. I will cite to you a few lines from this
work, as I have done in the case of the French
pamphlet. The author closes his work with the fol-
lowing words :

"Even if the time of Grace has not yet come, when
we should think of erecting an altar to the Lord in
Zion, even if we cannot expect to win the consent of
the Sultan, the following proposal is still practical,
especially at a time when under God's Providence,
there have arisen in Israel a number of men who pos-
sess great political influence or rule, by virtue of
their wealth, men like Montefiore, Albert Cohn,
Rothschild, Fould, and others. These men are Jew-
ish princes such as the Jewish people has not had
since the dispersion. These should organize a Soci-
ety for the colonization of Palestine, a Chebra Eretz
Nosheveth. A large number of the rich and respected
Jews of all parts of the world will' undoubtedly join
them. The program of the organization may include
the following activities :

"a. First, it should raise a fund sufficient to buy

174 ROME AND JERUSALEM

as many towns, fields and vineyards in the Holy Land
as possible. Let the desert turn into the Lebanon
and the hilly places to fruit-bearing plains, and the
desert shall again blossom like a lily and bring forth
fruit like the field blessed by God. And thus, gradu-
ally, the Society will acquire hills, and dales, and
fields, and villages, which it will in time rent out to
the colonists."

"b. Jews from all parts of the world, and espe-
cially from Russia, Poland and Germany, should be
brought over by the Society and be settled in Pales-
tine. Those who are not practical farmers should be
taught under the direction of experienced teachers,
employed by the Company. But those who are ac-
quainted with agriculture should be granted a tract
of land free of rent for a time, until they are able to
pay the company a fixed amount of rent. During
the first years, the company should, in addition, make
loans of money to the indigent farmers until such
time as the land begins to yield its harvests.

"c. Thirdly, a police system must be established
by this Society, to protect the colonists from the
attacks of the Bedouins, and to maintain law and
order in the land in general.

"d. Finally, there should be opened under the
auspices of the Society an agricultural school where
Jewish youths could receive an adequate preparation
for the life of a Palestinian farmer. This school, in
which also other sciences wiU be taught and a knowl-
edge of the Jewish religion imparted, can be estab-
lished either in Palestine or in any of the lands of

ROME AND JERUSALEM 175

the exile ; but it must be located in a land where wine
and oil and other fruits of the Holy Land are raised,
so that the pupils of the school may be prepared to
undertake agriculture in Palestine.

"God in his grace will then support us, and we
will, though small in our beginning, continually grow
and come more and more into the possession of the
Holy Land, as the prophet foresaw. We, however,
must make the beginning, as I have proved by numer-
ous citations from Talmud and Midrash."

Thus far Rabbi Kalisher, of Thorn.

Was I not right when I praised the practical sense
of our people to you and asserted that pious Jews
wUl join hands with the enlightened on the common
ground of Jewish Nationalism.? From another source
we are told, that last December a meeting was held
in Australia, which was attended by many Christian
and Jewish notables, and where resolutions similar in
spirit to the conclusions arrived at by our French-
man and the learned rabbi were proposed to a large
assembly and unanimously adopted.-^

And thus not only Jews of different lands and dif-
ferent grades of education, but most Christian de-
nominations and different peoples concur in the desire
to restore our people to its national heritage. And
the most remarkable thing about it is that they all
agree on the same means to the end. If I still needed
corroboration for the convictions arrived at after
years of study and life experience, I should find it in
the concurring opinions of different men and peoples,
1 See Note X at end of book,

176 ROME AND JERUSALEM

who having started from different points of view,
have arrived at the same results. I already foresee
the organization of the Society proposed by the
pious Jewish patriot, and its ultimate settling of
the Holy Land with Jewish colonists under the pro-
tection of the Western civilized nations. When the
Jewish situation in Palestine is once for all adjusted
under the protection of the law, and on the founda-
tion of labor, there will arise in the Holy Land, as
in Germany and other European countries, universi-
ties conducted by able scholars whose spirit will not
conflict with but harmonize with the ancient Jewish
national religion.

The faithful watchmen of the sacred grave of our
nationality, in spite of their poverty, do not wish to
accept help which may injure the ancient Jewish cult,
and our Western philanthropists continue to com-
plain that "you cannot do anything with these peo-
ple." Indeed, the lack of system and the wrong plans
of the philanthropists lead to no results ; they bring
only discord. But at least, do not blame those who
would rather die in misery in the Holy Land than
give up some precepts of their ancient religion.
Blame your ignorance of the needs of Jewry, blame
the spirit of the times, when you can show so little
success in aU your undertakings, whether in the
Orient or the Occident.

The rigid crust of orthodox Jewry will melt when
the spark of Jewish patriotism, now smoldering un-
der it, is kindled into a sacred fire which will herald
tjje coming of the Spring a,nd the resurrection of

ROME AND JERUSALEM 177

our nation to a new life. On the other hand, Occi-
dental Judaism is surrounded by an almost indis-
solvable crust, composed of the dead residue of the
first manifestation of the modem spirit, from the
inorganic chalk deposit of an extinct rationalistic en-
lightenment. This crust will not be melted by the fire
of Jewish patriotism ; it can only be broken by an ex-
ternal pressure under the weight of which everything
which has no future must give up its existence. In
contradistinction to orthodoxy, which cannot be de-
stroyed by an external force without at the same time
endangering the embryo of Jewish Nationalism that
slumbers within it, the hard covering that surrounds
the hearts of our cultured Jews will be shattered only
by a blow from without, one that world events are
already preparing; and which will probably fall in
the near future. The old frame-work of European..
Society, battered so often by the storms of revolu-
tion, is cracking and groaning on all sides. It can no
longer stand a storm. Those who stand between revo-
lution and reaction, the mediators, who have an ap-
pointed purpose to push modern Society on its path
of progress, wUl after Society becomes strong and
progressive, be swallowed up by it. The nurses of
progress, "who would undertake to teach the Creator
himself wisdom, prudence and economy; those car-
riers of culture, the saviors of Society, the specu-
lators in politics, philosophy and religion, will not
survive the last storm. And along with the other
nurses of progress our Jewish reformers will also
close their ephemeral existence. On the other hand,

178 ROME AND JERUSALEM

the Jewish people, along with other historical nations
will, after this last catastrophe, the approach of
which is attested by unmistakable signs of the times,
receive its fuU rights as a people.

"Eemember the days of oldy
Consider the years of many generations;
Ask thy father and he will tell thee.
Thy elders and they will inform thee,
When the Most High divided to the nations

their inheritance.
When he separated the sons of Adam,
He set the bounds of the peoples
According to the number of the Children of

Israel." 2

Just as after the last catastrophe of organic life,
when the historical races came into the world's arena,
there came their division into tribes, and the position
and role of the latter was determined, so after the
last catastrophe in social life, when the spirit of
humanity shall have reached its maturity, will our
people, with the other historical people, find its legiti-
mate place in universal history.

zDeut. xxxii, 7-8.

EPILOGUE

I. Hellenes and Hebrews

The spiritual views of a man, of whatever religion
or race, are the products of his particular environ-
ment. But the roots of these conceptions, as well
as those of social life in general, lie in the great web
of organic life with which the social life is closely
and inseparably connected ; just as organic life itself
is connected with the next life sphere, the cosmic.

There is no absolute line of demarcation between
these three life spheres, just as there is no diiference
between the material and the spiritual life. The three
life spheres do, however, form sharply defined grades
or epochs within the unified and indivisible universal
life. And just as in each individual life sphere, so
also in the totality of the universal life, every step
toward a higher grade of life must have its antece-
dents in the lower grade. Compared with the higher
order of life, the organic, the cosmic life sphere ap-
pears lifeless, especially on the border line which leads
from the life of the cosmic bodies to that of the
organisms. Here, on the surface of the already
cooled-off and stiffened cosmic bodies, we see only the
dead residue of the cosmic life sphere, out of which
the higher organic life sphere developed. But if we

179

180 EPILOGUE

observe the life of the cosmic sphere where it is still
being generated and developed in universal space, we
cannot deny to it attributes of the divine life — the life
that is so beautifully described in our literature in
the words : "Last in creation, first in thought." The
remarkable phenomena which were observed in the
modem period, such as the splitting and other
changes going on in the double comets of Bielasch
and Liais, the solidifying of the cosmic dust, its as-
sumption of the spheroid form and spiral movement,
and finally the grouping of these bodies into sideral
and planetary systems, these and other similar phe-
nomena are life processes which can be as little ex-
plained by an external and one-sided mechanical
gravitation theory, as the process of the division of
the embryonic cell or the grouping of the organs in
an organism.

Similarly, the human, the social life sphere, rises
infinitely higher than the organic, but is in nowise
different from it; just as organic life does not differ
essentially from the cosmic. Here, also, we meet, on
the border-line which leads from the organic into the
social life sphere, the natural organic race which,
compared with the higher humanitarian life, is spirit-
less. But in spite of this appearance of spiritless-
ness, the race is the root of the social li-fe sphere,
just as the cosmic bodies were the soil out of which
the organisms grew.

Social life is, first of all, a product of the life of
definite races, composed of different folk-tribes, each
of which has formed its life course in a typical way.

EPILOGUE 181

In the course of historical development, the typical
views of life of the various races came in conflict
with one another. From the friction of those anti-
thetical forces were generated the first sparks of the
spirit, which contain the germs, out of which higher
and more harmonious forms of life will spring forth.

The unity of the human genus is a conception
developed in the course of ages through historical
activity, and not an original, natural idea, inherent
in the human soul. It is not an immediate datum of
organic life, but a product of the social historical
development process. It has the variety of the prim-
itive racial tribes as its antecedent, their struggle as
its conditions, and their final harmonious cooperation
as its aim.

The thus conceived unity of mankind presupposes
a plan of the history of humanity, namely, that the
multiple phenomena of social life will finally unite and
cooperate in a not less harmonious manner than the
varied and different phenomena of organic and cosmic
life. This unified, divine plan of history is, at pres-
ent, apparently in its last stage of historical develop-
ment. But in antiquity, when the nations were still
in the grip of natural life, it was only one people,
the people of Israel, which, thanks to its particular
genius, was able to perceive the workings of the
divine plan in the history of humanity, as well as in
the organic and cosmic spheres of life.

If we consider the plan of history, as mapped out
in the sacred Scriptures of the Jews, without preju-
dice, we shall see in it, not only the conception of

182 EPILOGUE

the unity of mankind, but also the unity of all life,
cosmic, organic and social. Our sacred Scriptures
presuppose the unity of Grod, in spite of the apparent
variety which the word presents, and the unity of the
human genus, notwithstanding the differences of
races; because the total plan of the history of the
world seems to have been always present to the spirit
of the Jewish people, from the beginning of its his-
tory. The entire literature of the Jews is to be con-
ceived only from this genetic point of view. Judaism
is a historical religion, a historical cult, in contra-
distinction to Paganism, which is a natural cult.

The revelation of the Jewish spirit, which was an
isolated phenomenon at the dawn of the history of
humanity, would have been inexplicable and would
appear supernatural, were it not for the fact that
there existed originally different tribes, with typi-
cally individual mental qualities, which had evolved
fundamentally different views long before the revela-
tion of the Jewish spirit. This same remarkable
manifestation of individuality is met in the divergent
languages of primitive peoples. Primitive religions
and primitive languages are, as Renan has rightly
observed, race creations; though he himself had
hardly any conception of the importance of the
ancient Jewish historical religion. History corrobo-
rates the story of anthropology, that there were
originally different human races and tribes.-*^

1 In this, as well as in the subsequent passage, Hess en-
deavors to prove his objection to the doctrine of monogenism,
the theory that there was originally only one race and that the

EPILOGUE 183

If the various races and peoples that still exist
were not primal, then, in such places as Western
Asia, Northern Africa and Europe, where peoples
have lived together for thousands of years, com-
mingling through intermarriage and influenced by
common climatic conditions, there should have been
produced a type, in which there is no trace of their
foregone ancestors. But all human races and tribal
types, known to us either from historical monuments,
or who still live to-day in their primitive homes, in
spite of climatic and cultural influences, have repro-
duced their original types in such a way that the
anthropologist can tell, at a glance, the different
types of humanity, according to their physiological
and psychical characteristics. The most, ancient
Egyptian monuments depict negroes as well as Indo-
Germanic and Semitic types, races which have lived
from time immemorial in the same land and w^ich
were likewise scattered in different countries and
climates, yet their primal types have not undergone
any perceptible changes.

The languages of those nations with whom our civ-
ilization originated belong to two primal races, the
Indo-Germanic and the Semitic. The ancient culture

differences between races are only secondary, acquired through
the influence of environment. Hess believes that the various
races existing to-day are not modifications of one mother-race,
but are primal and essentially different races; their charac-
teristics are not acquired, but inherent. He does not, however,
explain how these original and primal ' races suddenly came
into existence. For a more detailed discussion of this ques-
tion, see Note VII and Introduction. — Translator.

184. EPILOGUE

of the former reached its culminating point in
Greece ; of the latter, in Judaea. ' In these two coun-
tries the typical antithesis between the Indo-Germanic
and Semitic races reached its highest point, and' the
fundamental differences in the views of life of these
two races were expressed in the classical works of
the Hellenes and Hebrews. We see, from those works,
that the former viewed life as a multiplicity and the
latter as a unity ; the one, looked upon the world as
eternal being, the other, as eternal becoming. The
spirit of the one expressed itself in terms of space,
that of the other, in terms of time, j In the expres-
sion of the Greek spirit, there is the underlying idea
of a perfectly created world ; Jthe Hebrew spirit, on
the other hand, is permeated with the invisible energy
of becoming, and the world, according to it, is gov-
erned by a principle which will begin its workday in
social life, when it has arrived at a standstill in the
world of Nature. The classical representatives of
the natural Sabbath no longer exist as a people, and
the God of history has dispersed his people, which
foresaw the historical Sabbath, among the nations.
But the two primal types of spirit, which no longer
have classical nations as their representatives, have
still many such individuals among civilized nations.
The two giants of German literature, Goethe and
Schiller, are the German representatives of the two
types of genius — the Greek and the Hebrew — of the
natural and historical Sabbath. And when Heine
divides all men into Hellenists and Nazarenes, he
designates, unconsciously, these two types of spirit.

EPILOGUE 185 .

Modern Jews, like the Indo-Germanic nations, have
in Heine and Borne their representatives of these two
types of cultural life.^

After the antithesis of the two spiritual tendencies
reached its culminating points in two historical peo-
ples, the conciliation of these two points of view
became the task of the civilized nations.

The first attempt at a reconciliation of the two
types of civilization was made by Christianity, fol-
lowed by that of Islam, which contested the right to
dominion of the former, in Asia, Africa and even in
a part of Europe itself, namely, in Spain. Just as
the process of conciliation started from the contact
of the Hellenic and Jewish cultures, in the ancient
Jewish fatherland, so in the meeting of Arabic, Jew-
ish and European cultures in Spain, the second
fatherland of the Jews, the final mediation process
between the two types of universal history had its
origin. But the spiritual spark which arose out of
the friction of the two tendencies, and which became
the germ of a higher harmonious tendency in which
the natural racial antitheses of the historical peoples
will ultimately find their reconciliation, this social
light germ, the new revelation, was generated by the
Jewish genius.

When pagan Rome brought the ancient Hellenic

2 "Natural Sabbath" and "Historical Sabbath" are used by
Hess as symbolic expressions; the former view looks upon the
world as an accomplished thing, the latter, only a becoming,
i.e., a continuous creation. The one is the expression of the
Hellenic spirit, the other that of the Hebrew. — Translator.

186 EPILOGUE

and Jewish cultural life to an end, there arose, from
the ruins of the latter, a new view of the world ; and
when Christian Rome struck the mortal blow at the
Arabic and Jewish cultural life in Spain, there arose
again, in the mind of a Jew, from the ruins of the
latter, the modern world view. Spinoza was a
descendant of the Spanish Jews, who fled to Holland
in order to escape the "holy" Inquisition.

II. Chkist and Spinoza

From Judaism, permeated with the scientific spirit,
Christianity will receive full justice and its impor-
tance will be properly estimated. The Jewish his-
torian no longer finds it necessary to assume an
attitude of fanaticism toward it. Graetz, in the
third volume of his history, has shown how one can
be a loyal Jew and at the same time an objective
judge of that phenomenon which has been a source
of persecution to the Jews for the last eighteen hun-
dred years. A few quotations from that writer will
show with what freedom of spirit and objectivity a
Jewish historian, not a reformer, has characterized
Christianity and its founder.

"While Judasa was stiU trembling," says our Jew-
ish historian, "lest the procurator Pontius Pilate
strike a blow at the population, which might result
in a rising in arms and great suffering, a strange
event occurred. It was so small in its beginning,
that people scarcely noticed it, but gradually,

EPILOGUE 187

through the force of circumstances, it assumed such
proportions that it turned the history of the world

into new paths Israel was now to commence

his mission in earnest; he was to become the teacher
of nations."-*^

"It was due to the strange movement which arose
under the governorship of Pilate, that the teachings
of Judaism won the sympathy of the heathen world.
But this new form of Judaism, changed by foreign
elements, became estranged from and antagonistic to
the source from which it sprang. Judaism could
hardly rejoice at her offspring, which soon turned
coldly from her and struck out into strange, diver-
gent paths. If Judaism does not wish to strip off
its ancient individuality and become disloyal to its
own convictions, it must continue its existence in
opposition to the religion to which she gave birth.
This new movement, this old doctrine in a new garb,
or rather Essenism intermingled with foreign ele-
ments, is Christianity, whose advent and early devel-
opment belong to the Judasan history of this epoch."

"As regards Jesus himself," says Graetz, "on ac-
count of his Galilean origin, he could not have stood
high in that knowledge of the Law which through
the schools of Shammai and HiUel had become preva-
lent in Judaea. His small stock of learning and his
corrupt half-Aramaic language pointed unmistaka-

1 Oegchichte dsr Judtn, 3nd edition. Vol. Ill, Ch. XI, p.
316. The chapter, from which we cite only a few fragments,
gives to the history of the development of Christianity, a new
historical viewpoint and supplies it with new sources. See
also Vol. IV, Chapters V, VIII, IX, and notes.

188 EPILOGUE

bly to his birthplace in Galilee. His deficiency in
knowledge, however, was compensated by his intensely
sympathetic character. Earnestness and moral pu-
rity were his undeniable attributes; they stand out
in all the authentic accounts of his life that have
reached us, and appear even in those garbled teach-
ings which his followers placed in his mouth. The
gentle disposition and the humility of Jesus remind
one of Hillel, whom he seems to have taken as his
model, and whose golden rule, "What you wish not
to be done to yourself, do not do unto others," he
adopted as the starting-point of his moral code. Like
Hillel, Jesus looked upon promotion of peace and the
forgiveness of injuries as the highest forms of virtue.
His whole being was permeated by that deeper re-
ligiousness which consecrates to God not only the
hour of prayer, a day of penitence, and longer or
shorter periods of devotional exercise, but every step
in the journey of life, which turns every aspiration of
the soul toward Him, subjects everything to His
wUl, and with childlike trust, commits everything to
His keeping. He was filled with that tender, broth-
erly love which Judaism teaches should be manifested
even to an enemy. Certainly no curse against his
enemies escaped his lips, and his enthusiastic admirers
have done him an injustice when they placed in his
mouth a curse or even unfriendly words against his
own mother. tHe reached the ideal of the passive
virtues which the Pharisees inculcated: "Be of the
oppressed and not of the oppressors; receive abuse

EPILOGUE 189

and return it not; let the motive of all your actions
be the love of God, and rejoice in suffering."^

"Jesus must, from the idiosyncrasies of his nature,
have been powerfully attracted by the Essenes, who
led a contemplative life apart from the world and its
vanities. When John, the Baptist — or more cor-
rectly, the Essene, — invited all to come to receive
baptism in the Jordan, to repent and prepare for the
Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus hastened to obey the call
and was baptized by him. Although it cannot be
proved that Jesus was formally admitted into the
order of the Essenes, much of his life and work can
only be explained on the supposition that he had
adopted their fundamental principles. Like the Es-
senes, Jesus highly esteemed self-inflicted poverty,
and despised the mammon of riches. . . . Commu-
nity of goods, a peculiar doctrine of the Essenes, was
not only approved, but positively enjoined by Jesus,
for his close disciples had a common purse and shared
their goods. Like the Essenes, he reprobated every
form of oath. "Swear not at all," taught Jesus,
"neither by heaven nor by the earth, nor by your
head, but let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay"
(James v, 12). Miraculous cures said to have been
performed by him, such as exorcism of demons from
those who believed themselves to be possessed, were
often made by the Essenes. It was, therefore, not
considered a special miracle that Jesus could do the

2 Sabbath, 88b; Yoma, 23a; Gittln, 36b. The style of the
sayings indicates that they were originally a part of an ancient
Baraitha.

190 EPILOGUE

same thing. We can also infer from the life that his
friends led, that the founder of the sect embraced
Essenism. Of his brother James, it is said, with all
certainty that he led the life of an Essene, for he did
not drink wine nor eat meat nor use oil, and always
dressed in linen. But it would seem that Jesus
adopted only the essential traits of Essenism, such
as the predilection for poverty, the contempt for
riches and property, the community of goods, celib-
acy, the fear of pronouncing an oath and the ability
to exert a curative influence upon maniacs. The
unimportant practices, such as the observance of
strict levitical purity, the frequent taking of baths
and the wearing of linen robes, he dropped. Even
baptism did not play an important role with him, for
we do not find it emphasized either in the stories told
about him or in the sayings attributed to him."

"After John had been imprisoned by Herod An-
tipas in the fortress of Macharus, Jesus thought sim-
ply of continuing his master's work. Like John, he
preached "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at
hand,"^ without perhaps having then a suspicion of
the part he was afterward to play in that Kingdom
of Heaven. Jesus apparently felt that if his appeal
was not to be lost in the desert, like that of the Bap-
tist, but bring forth lasting results, it must not be
addressed to the whole nation, but to a particular

3 Matthew iv, 12. In the parallel passage, Mark i, IS, there
are added to the ahove the rather suspicious words: "and be-
lieve the gospel." The term Evangelion is of post-Pauline
origin and could hardly have been used by Jesus.

EPILOGUE 191

class of the Jews. The middle classes, inhabitants of
towns of greater or lesser importance, were not want-
ing in godliness, piety and morality, and conse-
quently a call to them to repent and forsake their
sins would have been meaningless. The declaration
made to Jesus by the young man who was seeking
the way of eternal life, 'From my youth I have kept
the laws of God; I have not committed murder or
adultery, nor have I stolen or borne false witness ; I
have honored my father and loved my neighbor as
myself,' * might have been made by the greater num-
ber of the middle-class Jews of that time. The de-
scription of the later writers of the corruption of
the Jews and of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, in
the time of Jesus, is pure fiction. The disciples of
Shammai and HiHel, the followers of the zealot Judas,
the bitter foes of the Herodians and of Rome, were
not morally sick and were not in need of a physician.
They were ever ready for self-sacrifice and Jesus
wisely refrained from turning to them. StiU less was
he inclined to attempt to reform the rich, the friends
of the Romans and the Herodians. From these, the
warning of the simple, unlearned moralist and
preacher, his reproof of their pride, their venality
and inconstancy, would only have elicited mockery
and derision. Jesus therefore determined to seek out
those who did not belong to or had been expelled
from the Jewish community. There were in Judaea
at the time many who had no conception of the
wholesome truths of Judaism, of its laws, its history
* Matthew, xix, 16-20, and parallel passages.

192 EPILOGUE

and its future. They were publicans and tax-gath-
erers who were shunned by the patriots, as promoters
of Roman interests, who turned their backs upon the
Law, and led a wild life, heedless alike of the past
and of the future. There were also poor, ignorant
handicraftsmen and menials (Arrirhaaretz) , who were
seldom able to visit the capital, or listen to teachings
which, indeed, they would probably not have under-
stood. It was not for them that Sinai had flamed
or the prophets had uttered their cry of warning;
for the teachers of the Law, more intent upon ex-
pounding doctrines than upon reforming their hear-
ers, failed to make the Law and the prophets intelli-
gible to those classes, and consequently did not draw
them into their fold. It was to these classes that
Jesus turned, to snatch them out of their torpor,
their ignorance and their ungodliness. He felt that
he was called to save the 'lost sheep of the house of
Israel.' 'They that be whole need not a physician,
but they that are sick.' ^

"Jesus, however, by word and example, raised the
sinner and publican, and filled the hearts of those
poor, neglected people with the love of God, trans-
forming them into dutiful children of their heavenly
Father. He animated them with his own piety and
fervor and improved their conduct by the hope he
gave them of being able to enter the Kingdom of
Heaven. Above all things, he taught his male and
female disciples the Essene virtues of self-abnegation

» Matthew ix, 13; x, 5; xv, 24; xviii, 11-1*, and parallel pas-
lages.

EPILOGUE 198

and humility, of the contempt for riches, of charity
and the love of peace. He bade them become sinless
as little children, and declared they must be as if
bom again, if they would become members of the
approaching Messianic Kingdom. The law of broth-
erly love and forbearance he carried to the extent
of self-immolation. 'If one smite thee on one cheek,
turn to him the other also ; and if one sue thee at law
and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.'
He taught the poor that they should not take heed
for meat or drink or raiment, but pointed to the
birds of the air and the lilies of the field that were
fed and clothed, yet 'they toil not neither do they
spin.' He taught the rich how to distribute alms —
'Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand
doeth.' He admonished the hypocrite, and bade him
pray in the secrecy of his closet, placing before him
a short form of prayer — 'Our Father,' which may
possibly have been in use among the Essenes.

"Jesus made no attack upon Judaism itself. He
had no idea of becoming the reformer of Jewish doc-
trine or the propounder of a new Law. He sought
merely to redeem the sinner, to call him to a good
and holy life and to make him worthy of participa-
tion in the approaching Messianic time. He insisted
upon the unity of God, and was far from attempting
to change in the slightest degree the Jewish concep-
tion of the Deity. To the question once put to him
by an expounder of the law, 'What is the essence of
Judaism.?' he replied, 'Hear, Israel, our God is
one,' and 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;

194 EPILOGUE

— these are the chief commandments. When a man
approached him with the words : 'Good Master,' Jesus
remarked: 'Call me not good, there is none good but
One, that is, my Father in Heaven.' His disciples,
who remained true to Judaism, promulgated the dec-
laration of their master — 'I have not come to destroy
but to fulfil; till heaven and earth pass, one jot or
one tittle shall in nowise pass from the Law till all
be fulfilled.' 6

He must have kept the Sabbath holy, for those of
his followers who were attached to Judaism strictly
observed the Sabbath, which they would not have
done had their master disregarded it. It was only
the Shammaitic strictness in the observance of the
Sabbath which forbade even the healing of the sick
on that day, that Jesus protested against, declaring
that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Jesus
made no objection to the existing custom of sacri-
fice, he merely demanded — and in this the Pharisees
agreed with him — that reconciliation with one's fel-
low-man should precede any act of atonement.''^ He
did not even oppose fasting when practised without
ostentation or hypocrisy. He was so completely
Jewish, that he shared the narrow views of his time,

6 Matthew v, 17-19. Cf. the Epistle of James, x, 12. The
fact that the extreme antinomist Mark formulates the say-
ing in the opposite sense, namely, "I have come to abrogate
the Law," proves the authenticity of the original form as quoted
in the two synoptic Gospels. We find in the Talmud (Sabbath,
116b) the same saying in its gospel form: "And it is written
In it (i.e. in the Gospel) : "I have not come to abrogate any
law of Moses or to add anything to it,"

7 Cf. the last Mishnah of Yoma,

EPILOGUE 196

and, like the Jews of the period, thoroughly despised
the heathen world, which included the Roman op-
pressors and their followers, the Oriental Greeks and
Syrians. One must not throw holy things to the
dogs, he taught, nor cast pearls before swine, lest
they trample them under their feet and turn again
and rend you. When a Canaanite or a Syrian-Greek
woman from Phoenicia implored him to heal her pos-
sessed daughter, he replied harshly, "I was sent only
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and it is not
right to take the bread away from the mouth of the
children and cast it to the dogs." To his disciples he
repeatedly spoke: Do not follow in the paths of the
heathens and do not enter the cities of the Samari-
tans. While Jesus thus confined himself to the
bounds of Judaism, he had no intention to proclaim
a new 'revelation or to originate a new covenant,*
but limited himself to the task of sowing the seeds
of religion and morality in such hearts as had here-
tofore been barren of it. Jesus did not teach the

8 It is true that the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, chs.
v-vii, partly represents Jesus as one who wishes to oppose his
teaching to the Law. But the authenticity of the Sermon
itself is very doubtful. Mark does not record the Sermon on
the Mount at all. Luke knows it only in part. We may, there-
fore, suspect it to be an interpolation in Matthew's ground-
work. Finally, it is full of contradictions; here, the Law is
praised and immediately afterward it is condemned. Is it
possible that Jesus should have uttered such an untruthful
statement in regard to the Law as "It is written, 'Hate thy
enemy'?" (Ibid., v, 43). Only an enemy of the Law like
Mark could have formulated it, he who established the famous
antithesis between Judaism and Christianity and who did not
l.l_ always adhere to the truth.

196 EPILOGUE

immortality of the soul, in the sense of a continued
existence of the soul after its liberation from the
body and its sojourning in the abode of heaven, but
emphasized the resurrection of the body at a definite
time,® in accordance with the teachings of Judaism
current in his day. The resurrection of the just and
pious was, according to him, to take place on earth,
and as the beginning of the inauguration of a new
order of things, the future world (Olom Jiab-ba),
which he, like the Pharisees and Essenes, identified
with the Messianic era and the initiation of the King-
dom of Heaven. He, like the Pharisees, threatened
sinners with eternal punishment in a fiery pit (G^-
herma).^^ The merit of Jesus consists in his ef-
forts to impart inner force to the precepts of Juda-
ism, in his upholding the Jewish doctrine of the
Brotherhood of Man, in his insistence that moral
laws be placed in the foreground, and in his endeav-
ors to have them accepted by those who had hitherto
been regarded as the lowest and most degraded of
human beings.

His great design, the central point of all his
thoughts, Jesus disclosed on one occasion to the most
intimate circle of his disciples. He led them to a
retired spot at the foot of Mount Hermon, near
Caesarea Philippi, where the Jordan rushes forth
from mighty rocks, and in that remote solitude he
revealed to them the hidden object of his thoughts.
But he contrived his discourse in a way that it ap-
peared to be his disciples, who at last elicited from

» Matthew xxii, S3-32. lo Matthew v, 23.

EPILOGUE 197

him the revelation that he considered himself the ex-
pected Messiah. He asked his followers whom they
thought him to be. Some replied that he was thought
to be Elijah, the forerunner of the Messiah; others,
that he was the prophet whose advent Moses had pre-
dicted; upon which Jesus asked them, "But whom
say ye that I &m?" Simon Peter answered and said,
"Thou art the Christ." Jesus praised Peter's dis-
cernment and admitted that he was the Messiah, but
forbade his disciples to divulge the truth, or, for the
present, from speaking about it at all.-'^-'- Such was
the mysteriously-veiled birth of Christianity. When,
a few days later, the most trusted of his disciples,
Simon Peter, and the two sons of Zebedee, James
and John, timidly suggested that Elijah must pre-
cede the Messiah, Jesus replied that Elijah had al-
ready appeared, though unrecognized, in the person
of the Baptist.^^ Had Jesus from the very com-
mencement of his career nourished these thoughts in
the depths of his soul, or had they first taken shape
when the many followers he had gained seemed to
make their realization possible? This is a puzzle
which cannot be solved. Jesus never publicly called
himself the Messiah, but made use of other expres-
sions which were doubtless current among the Es-
senes. He called himself "the Son of Man," ^^ (^Bar-
Nash), alluding probably to Daniel vii, 13, "One

11 Matthew xvi, 13-20. In the Gospel of Mark (viii, 27-30),
the story retains more of its originality. In Luke ix, 18, it is
more or less confused.

12 Matthew xvii, 10. iiJ.
12 Matthew, xvii, 10.

198 EPILOGUE

like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven,
and came to the Ancient of Days," a verse which,
at that time, was made to point to the Messiah him-
self.^* There was yet another name which Jesus ap-
plied to himself in his Messianic character — the mys-
terious words "Son of God," probably taken from
the seventh verse of the second Psalm, "The Lord
has said unto me, thou art my son, this day have I
begotten thee," a verse which was in certain Jewish
circles interpreted to refer to the Messiah.-^^ Was
this expression used by Jesus figuratively, or did he
wish it to be taken in a literal sense? As far as we
know, he never explained himself clearly on this sub-
ject, not even later, when it was on account of the
meaning attached to these words that he was brought
to trial. His followers afterward disagreed among
themselves upon the matter, and the various ways in
which they interpreted his words divided them into
different sects, among which a new form of idolatry
unfolded itself.

Other appellations were employed by Jesus to des-
ignate his Messianic character, such as "Heavenly
Bread" {Manna) and the "Bread of Life," ^^ ex-
pressions which were doubtless employed by the
Essenes. He called his followers "the salt of the
earth." ^'^ How Jesus expected to fulfil the Messi-

" Cf. Sanhedrin, 98a. There the Messiah is called by a
hybrid name Bar-Nefle, a Greek word, meaning "son of the
clouds." See also ibid., 96b.

iGSukka, £3a.

16 John vi, 36, 41.

1' Matthew v, 13-14, and parallel passages.

EPILOGUE 199

anic expectations, is nowhere indicated. It is only
certain that he thought only of Israel, whom he ex-
pected to deliver, both from the burden of sin and
the yoke of the Romans.^® Of the pagan world, he
thought as little, when considering himself the Mes-
siah, as when he was only a disciple of John the
Baptist. He probably pictured to himself the re-
demption of Israel in the following manner: that
when the Jewish people, through love of God and
man, through self-denial and the assumption of vol-
untary poverty, would rise, under his leadership, to
a higher life, God, out of love to his people, would
perform for them all sorts of miracles, such as the
deliverance from the rule of the Romans, the return
of the exiled tribes and final restoration of Israel to
its former Davidic splendor.

When Jesus made himself known to his disciples
as the Messiah, he enjoined upon them, as remarked
already, to keep the revelation secret. Whether it
was the fear of Herod Antipas, the slayer of the
Baptist, that inspired this cautious measure, or
whether he intended to wait until a larger circle of
disciples gathered about him to reveal himself as the
Messiah, cannot be ascertained. He consoled his
disciples for the present silence imposed upon them,
by the assurance that a time would come when "What
I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in the light, and
what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the
house tops." What occurred was contrary to what
Jesus and his disciples expected, for as soon as it
18 Luke zxiv, 31.

200 EPILOGUE

was known (the disciples having probably not kept
the secret), that Jesus of Nazareth not only came
to preach the Kingdom of Heaven, but proclaimed
himself as the expected Messiah, public sentiment
rose against him. He was asked to give proofs and
signs that he was the Messiah, which he was not able
to do, and he was thus forced constantly to evade
the questions addressed to him. Many of his fol-
lowers were vexed at his assuming the role of a Mes-
siah, and left him. In order not to be discredited in
the eyes of his dSciples, it was necessary that he
should perform some miracle that would crown his
work or seal it with his death. They expected, first,
that he would appear in the capital at the time of
the Passover Feast and there declare himself in the
Temple, in the presence of all the people, as the Mes-
siah. It is said that his own brothers entreated him
to go to the capital, so that his disciples should at
last see his great work. "For there is no man that
doeth anything in secret and he himself seeketh to
be known openly. If thou do these things, show
thyself to the world." (John vii, 4.) And so Jesus
was finally forced to enter upon the path of danger.
How many years Jesus spent in Galilee is unknown;
the Gospel sources seem to indicate that his residence
there lasted only one year, so little did they know of
the actual events. According to later authorities,
the time passed by Jesus in his native district was
three years. ■'^®

He wished to prevent any misconception as to his

i» Ireneeus, contra hceresea, ii, 38-39.

EPILOGUE 201

desire to change the Law, and his ready reply to the
Pharisee who asked what would be required of him
if he became his disciple was, "If thou wilt enter
into life, keep the commandments; sell what thou
hast and give to the poor." When he passed Jeri-
cho and came near to the capital, he took up his
abode near the walls of Jerusalem, in the village of
Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, where the lepers,
who were forced to avoid the city, had their settle-
ment. He found shelter in the house of one of these
outcasts by the name of Simon, who, together with
his fellow-sufferers, became his followers. The other
followers that he found at Bethany belonged also
to the lower class, such as Lazarus and his sisters,
Mary and Martha. The sources know only of one
rich resident of Jerusalem, Joseph of Arimathea,
who became a disciple of Jesus.

The account of Jesus' entry in Jerusalem as re-
corded in the Gospel is of a legendary character. It
seems incredible that the people should one day have
conducted him into the city in a triumphal march,
and the following day have demanded his death. The
one account, like the other, is pure invention, the
first designed for the purpose of showing that the
masses recognized him as the Messiah, the second, in
order to throw the guilt of his execution upon the
entire people of Israel. There is also little histori-
cal truth in the story that Jesus forced his way into
the Temple, overthrew the tables of the money-
changers, and drove out the dove-seUers from their
stalls. Such extraordinary actions would not have

202 EPILOGUE

been passed over in silence by contemporary histori-
ans. Nor is it anywhere mentioned that money-
changers and dove-sellers had their tables within the
precincts of the Temple. We know, however, that
the Temple management sold the necessary wine,
birds, or oil to those who brought sacrifices.^"

But it is just the most important facts in the life
of Jesus, namely, the attitude which he assumed
toward the people of Jerusalem, the Synhedrion and
the sects, the question whether he reaUy declared
himself publicly as the Messiah, and how the decla-
ration was received by the people, which are envel-
oped by the Gospel writers in such an impenetrable
veil of mystery, that one cannot fail to suspect the
legendary character of the whole story. There un-
doubtedly existed strong prejudices against him
among the people of the capital. The educated
classes could hardly be expected to accept an un-
learned Galilean as the Messiah. Such a supposi-
tion would have contradicted the age-long tradition,
that the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem and
be a descendant of the house of David. It is pos-
sible that the proverb, "Can any good thing come
out of Nazareth.?" originated at this time. Devout
Jews, no doubt, took offence because he associated
with sinners and publicans, eating and drinking with
them. Even the disciples of John, the Essenes, were
displeased.^^

The Shammaites certainly objected to his healing

20 Shekalim, iv, 3; v, 4.

21 Matthew xi, 2-9.

EPILOGUE 203

of the sick on the Sabbath, and would not have hailed
one, who, in their eyes, violated the Sabbath, as the
Messiah. Neither could the Zealots expect much of
Jesus, who did not inspire his followers with hatred
toward the oppressors, the Romans, but, on the con-
trary, preached non-resistance and willing submis-
sion to the Roman authorities as expressed in his
saying: "Render, therefore, unto Csesar the things
which are Caesar's, and unto God, the things which
are God's" (Matthew xxii, 21). All these cir-
cumstances, which could by no means be reconciled
with the traditional conception of the Messiah,
caused the higher and the learned classes to assume
an indifferent attitude toward him, and consequently
he could not have been received in Jerusalem with
any marked degree of enthusiasm. All these objec-
tions, however, afforded no ground for any legal ac-
cusation against him. Freedom of thought and dif-
ference of opinion had, owing to the frequent debates
between the schools of Shammai and Hillel, become
a firmly established right, and one would hardly be
prosecuted because of a difference in a religious opin-
ion, provided, however, that he did not openly vio-
late any of the authoritative laws or reject the ac-
cepted conception of God. It was just in this regard
that Jesus laid himself open to accusation. The re-
port had spread that Jesus had called himself the
Son of God, an appellation which, if taken literally,
undermines the very essential religious conceptions
of Judaism; so that the representatives of the re-
ligion could not afford to pass the incident over in

204 EPILOGUE

silence. But how was it possible for the tribunal to
ascertain whether Jesus really used the expression,
or what meaning he attached to the words? How
could they discover the secret of his sect? It was
necessary for this purpose to find a traitor from
among his disciples. Such a man was found in Judas
Iscariot, who, incited by greed, delivered to the
tribunal, we are told, the man whom he heretofore
had revered as the Messiah. A Jewish source, of
ancient origin and apparently trustworthy, seems to
place in the true light the use made of this traitor.
The Court required, in order to arraign Jesus either
as a false prophet or as a seducer of the people
{Mesith), the evidence of two witnesses, who had
heard him call himself by the name "Son of God."
Judas was therefore required to induce him to speak
on the subject, so that the two witnesses, concealed
nearby, should be able to hear every word. This
extraordinary process of obtaining testimony against
a suspected person was employed only in one case,
namely, when a person was suspected of being a se-
ducer of the people. ^^

22 Both sources, the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrln, 67a (in
the uncensored Amsterdam edition of 1645), and the Jeru-
shalmi Palestinian Talmud Sanhedrin, vii, 16, relate that this
special procedure of concealing witnesses was employed against
Jesus. The first says: "And this procedure," alluding to what
was mentioned before, "'was followed in regard to Ben Satda,
at Lud, and they hanged him on the day before Passover."
The latter says: "Thus they did to Ben Satda at Lud. They
concealed two witnesses and then tH^^ brought him to court
and stoned him." The identification of Ben Satda^ and Jesus
is assumed by the Talmud to be certain. The meaning of the

EPILOGUE 205

According to the Christian sources, Judas' act of
treachery consisted in this: -that he pointed Jesus
out to his accusers by giving him a kiss of homage
while surrounded by his disciples and the masses. It
is strange, however, that such a stratagem should be
employed to identify a man who, according to the
self-same accounts, had entered Jerusalem in tri-
umphal procession and preached openly in the Tem-
ple! As soon as Jesus was seized by the soldiers,
almost all of his disciples left him and sought safety
in flight; Simon Peter was the only one who re-
mained. At daybreak, on the 14th of Nissan,
namely, on the eve of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
Jesus was brought before the Synhedrion. It seems
that the tribunal, before which he was brought to
trial, was not the great Synhedrion, but the smaller
one, composed of twenty-three members, for the one
who presided at the trial was not the President of
the Synhedrion, a member of the house of Hillel, but
Joseph Caiaphas, the High Priest. The purpose of
the trial was to determine whether Jesus really con-
sidered himself to be the Son of God, as the witnesses
had testified. It is rather unbelievable that he was
tried, as the Gospels relate (Matt, xxvi, 61), be-
cause he was supposed to have boasted that he was

word Satda, is not known. The etymological derivation which
the Tahnud gives in loco, as well as in Sabbath, 104b (un-
censored edition), is rather odd. If we take into consideration
the fact that during the Second Temple trials of seducers
occurred very seldom or probably not at all, we are inclined
to believe that the halachah in the above-quoted Mishnah and
the Baraitha are the only authentic sources in the Talmud
concerning Jesus.

206 EPILOGUE

able to destroy the Temple and build it up again in
three days. Such an assertion, if really made by
him, could not have been the object of an arraign-
ment. The accusation doubtless pointed to the sin
of blasphemy (^Giddwf-hlasphemia) , and to the sup-
posed affirmation of Jesus that he was the Son of
God.^^ To the direct question as to that point,
Jesus gave no answer and remained silent. When
the President repeated the question and asked him
if he were the Son of God, he answered, "Thou hast
said it," ^* and added, "Hereafter shall ye see the
Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and
coming in the clouds of heaven" (Matt, xxvi, 24).
On hearing this assertion, the judges concluded that
he believed himself to be the Son of God. The High
Priest rent his garments, and the Court condemned
him to death as a blasphemer.^^ From the accounts
of the Christian sources, we cannot infer that ac-

28 Matthew xxvi, 63. It is rather strange that the Gospels
Atate that the witnesses who testified against Jesus had given
false testimony, while the Gospels themselves describe Jesus
as repeatedly asserting that he was the Son of God, and this
was just what the witnesses accused him of.

2* The Gospel writers themselves did not know how Jesus
answered the questions directed at him by the Court. Accord-
ing to Matthew xxvi, 64, the answer was: "Thou hast said it,"
which may mean, "yes," as well as "no." According to Luke
xxii, 69, the answer was: "Ye say that I am," and according to
Mark xiv, 69, his answer was: "I am he." According to John,
Jesus confessed to the charge and pointed to his public activity
—a rather suspicious move.

26 The three Synoptic Gospels all agree that the Court con-
demned him on the charge of blasphemy. The fact that the
President rent his garments, Matthew xxvi, 65; Mark xiv,
63-65, testiiies to it, for the Sanhedrin, ch. vii, Mishnas, 10-11,

EPILOGUE 207

cording to the existing penal laws, the judges had
pronounced an unjust sentence against him. The
evidence was against him. The Synhedrion received
the sanction of the sentence, or rather the permis-
sion to carry out the execution from Pontius Pilate,
the Procurator, who happened then to be in Jerusa-
lem.

Pilate, before whom Jesus was brought, asked him
about the political side of his activity, whether he,
as Messiah, had also declared himself King of the
Jews, and when Jesus gave the ambiguous answer,
"Thou hast said it," Pilate confirmed the sentence.^*
The story reported in the Gospels that Pilate had
found him innocent but that the Jews had insistently
clamored for his death, is legendary.^^ When Jesus

requires such action on hearing the name of God blasphemed.
Even John xix, 7, says that Jesus was condemned according
to law, for he had declared himself as the Son of God.

26 Three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew xxvii, 11; Mark xv, 3;
Luke xxii, 3, report Jesus' answer to Pilate as the same he gave
to the High Priest: "Thou hast said it," which is ambiguous.
John xviii, 34<f, makes him deny the assertion by asking Filate
a counter question, "Sayest thou this thing of thyself or did
others tell it to thee of me?" and adding to it the declaration,
"My kingdom is not of this world."

2' Only Matthew xxvii, 24, reports that Pilate poured water
on Jesus' hands as a sign of his innocence and that the dream
of Pilate's wife was the cause of his believing Jesus guUtless.
But the washing of the hands was a Jewish custom, prescribed
in the case of a man found murdered and the perpetrator of
the crime not having been discovered. Hence Pilate, as a
Roman general, could not have employed it. Rightly have
Kortlin and Hilgenfeld observed that this passage must have
been inserted by a later follower of Paul, who wanted to
demonstrate that the pagan Pilate and his wife were more
favorably inclined toward Jesus than the Jews.

208 EPILOGUE

was scoffed at, and obliged to wear the crown of
thorns in ironical allusion to the Messianic and royal
dignity he had assumed, it was not the Jews who in-
flicted the indignities upon him, but the Roman sol-
diers, who sought through him to deride the Jewish
nation. The Jewish judges manifested so little per-
sonal animosity toward Jesus that they gave him,
as they gave to every other criminal, the cup of wine
mixed with frankincense, in order to render him in-
sensible to pains of death.^^ According to the then
existing penal laws, a blasphemer was first to be
stoned and after his death, to be hanged for a short
time on a tree.^® Jesus was executed in this manner.
But the Christian sources would have us believe that
he was crucified at nine in the morning, and that his
torture lasted for six hours, until three in the after-
noon, when he expired. His last words were a quota-
tion from the Psalms, in the Aramaic dialect: "My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me" ("Eli, eli,

28 Matthew xxvii, 24, and parallel passages. This cup of
wormwood wine was prescribed by the Law as an act of mercy.
(Ebel Rabbatai or Semachoth, ch. xi, 9; Sanhedrin, 43a.)
In the Gospels, however, it is described as an act of cruelty
against Jesus. The Gospels also differ in regard to the liquid
in question. Mark says, in agreement with the Talmud, that
It consisted of wine and myrrh or frankincense. Matthew be-
lieves it to have been vinegar and gall. The other writers do
not mention the incident at all.

29 In the Mishnah Sanhedrin, ch. v, 7, stoning and post-
mortem hanging is the prescribed punishment for blasphemy
and idolatry. And doubtless Jesus was executed in the same
way. The Gospels, however, do not mention stoning, but speak
of crucifixion, and that as having been carried out before his
death, which is certainly untrue.

EPILOGUE 209

lama shebaktani")? The Roman soldiers placed, in
mockery, the following inscription upon the cross:
"Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." The cruci-
fixion and the burial of the body probably took place
outside of the town, on a spot by the name of Gol-
gotha, the place of the skulls, reserved for the burial
of condemned criminals. How great was the woe
caused by that execution ! It was the indirect cause
of innumerable deaths and interminable suffering
among millions of the sons of his people. Millions
of broken hearts and tragic fates have not yet atoned
for his death. He is the only mortal of whom it can
be truthfully said that he influenced the world more
by his death than by his life. Golgotha, the place of
skulls, became for a great part of humanity, a new
Sinai.30

The Jewish historian, in continuing his narrative,
shows how, as a result of the Pauline trend of
thought, which inclined toward the pagan view of
life, there arose, already in the primitive Church,
sects and difference of opinion, traces of which are
to be recognized in the Gospel writings, the most
ancient of which was composed, as late as the time
of Bar Kochba (132-133). In order to conquer the
pagan world, the daughter of Judaisjp was forced to
make greater concessions to paganism than the latter
made to Judaism.

Christianity represents a departure from the clas-
sical essence of both Judaism and Paganism. The
Jewish view of thejwprld wa«, and is, that the uni-
soGraetz, History, Vol. III. German edition.

210 EPILOGUE

verse is a sacred creation of one Supreme Being. To
Paganism, in its typical classical form, which reached
its culmination in the Greek spirit, the divine unity,
present in the world, appeared only as a product of
the harmonious combination of multiple and various
universfil forces. The creative essence of Judaism
did not disappear with its created classical culture,
because the Jewish creative genius did not exhaust
itself in its creation. Classical Paganism, however,
saw its genius disappear with its culture, the roots
of which lay only on the surface of life, and which
were consequently swept away by the tide of bar-
barous tribes which flooded the ancient world during
the closing period of antiquity. To the pagans, who
saw the gradual disappearance of their own creative
genius, along with the environment wherein it acted,
it appeared, one day, that the divine harmony of the
pluralistic world is no more divine and sacred but
God-forsaken, and, finally, Paganism sought refuge
in its opposite, the creative spirit of Judaism. On
the other hand, only such Jews could satisfy the
religious cravings of the Pagan world as had es-
tranged themselves from their own world and were
able to merge with the pagan environment so as to
draw it along with themselves to the spirit which ani-
mated them — such Jews as did not look upon them-
selves as chosen children of a holy Being, but only as
sinners and apostates. Thus there arose the double
separation of the worldly element from the divine
in Judaism on the one hand, and the divine from
the worldly element in Paganism on the other; and

EPILOGUE 211

as a result of the combination ' of a Judaism devoid
of its element of worldliness and a Godless Paganism,
there was born the Christian view, according to
which a Jewish saint in the garb of a pagan man,
had come to raise and prepare the nations for a
better, divine world which, however, poss«sses all
the characteristics of other-worldliness.

This other-worldliness, in the course of historical
development, in the measure that the nations ap-
proached the Jewish historical religion, assumed more
and more of a secular character. And the more
Jewish, the more humane the pagan world became,
the more could Jews participate in the culture of
this world and contribute to its progress. And
finally, when, after the long struggle between the
pagan world of sensuality and barbarous force, on
the one hand, and the spiritual, mystic, Jewish view
on the other, the sun of modem humanitarian civili-
zation shed its feeble rays upon a better and more
perfect world, it was a Jew who was able to signal
to the world that the final stage of the process of
human development has begun.

III. The Genetic View of the Woeld

Inasmuch as Spinoza's Works have already been
translated into Hebrew, the time has come when we
must defend this great Jewish teacher against mis-
representation on the part of Jewish scholars. The
objection raised by Luzzato against Spinoza proves
only that this great Hebrew scholar has wandered
into a field in which he is a total stranger. The

212 EPILOGUE

teaching of Spinoza, which derives the entire spirit-
ual-moral system of life from the single idea of God
as the ground of Nature and Thought, and which
assigns the Knowledge of God as the highest aim of
life, reconciles the apparent contradiction between
philosophy and experimental science on the one hand
and between reason and feeling on the other. Luz-
zato, who charges the system of Spinoza, which is an
immediate outflow of the Creative Spirit with a lack
of emotion, calling it a system of dry reason, dis-
plays only his own ignorance of the true nature of
these problems and of their masterly solution by
Spinoza.

The basic idea of the system of Spinoza, namely,
that God is the only substance, the ground and origin
of all being, is the fundamental expression of the
Jewish genius, which has ever manifested itself in
divine revelations from the time of Moses and the
Prophets, down to modem days. These manifesta-
tions of the Jewish genius are not a supernatural
phenomenon, but form a part of the great eternal
Law which governs all three life spheres, the cosmic,
organic and social. The special field of operation
of the Jewish genius, however, is the social sphere,
and it is due to it that a unified historical develop-
ment of humanity was made possible. The revela-
tions of the Jewish spirit express the universal law
in its entirety ; its past workings as well as its future
operations, using the scientific formula of to-day with
the same faciUty as formerly the proofs of imagina-
tion and feeling.

EPILOGUE 213

The Jewish view, which sees in the world of Na-
ture and life the continual operation of one creative
force, is confirmed by observation. We cannot fail
to conceive in any created phenomenon in Nature, or
in the sphere of spirit, the immediate influence of the
Creator. Those who try to avoid this conclusion,
explaining the rise of beings as only a result of a
mere mechanical operation of the law of cause and
effect, and oppose to the theory of creation that of
the eternity of matter, will find it difficult to uphold
their view. The hypothesis of the eternity of the
atoms of matter and of their rigidity and unchange-
ability does not explain all phenomena of the behavior
of matter under certain conditions, and is gradually
giving way to the genetic view, which sees everywhere
only movements and no fixed atoms nor any stable
cosmic ether. Chemical atoms have not existed from
eternity, but, like organic germs, were once generated
and are subject to the great law of growth and decay.
They arose through the act of creation, by the same
act which successively calls into existence every being,
and continues to form centers of gravity, which in
the cosmic world we name atoms; in the organic,
germs; and in the social, revelations.

Creation, however, does not mean the forming of
new elements, but only a new arrangement of existing
materials. Every creation is a combination of two
opposite movements into a new, balanced and more
perfect one. The cosmic rotation of the planetary
bodies, which is the result of two opposite movements,
the centripetal and the centrifugal, is an excellent

214 EPILOGUE

illustration of this form of combination. A spiritual
creation is, similarly, a combination of two preceding
mental tendencies into a new synthesis. Every phy-
sical creation presupposes the eternal Creator, and
every spiritual creation an inspiration, which is only
a channel through which the immediate influences of
the Creator are conveyed. Religion is the greatest
and the highest of such inspirations. Can we, then,
doubt its teaching of the existence of a creative ele-
ment in life, which is evidenced by experience and
science; or shall we name it supernatural, an excep-
tion to the eternal law? It requires extraordinary
reason to do so.

The creative process in the social life-sphere oper-
ates according to a well-formed plan, which is gradu-
ally being unfolded in history, just as a similar plan
was previously developed in Nature. Spiritual crea-
tions, like the organic, have their paleontological and
modern epochs, the last stage of which is the age of
maturity, in which the development of social life will
come to completion. The coming of the future epoch
of social life wiU be hastened by the efforts and
energy of the Jews, who have a special calling for
conveying to the world revelations affecting the social
life-sphere.

The typical expression of the Jewish genius, the
genetic view, is essentially one with all its representa-
tives, with Moses and the Prophets as well as with
Spinoza. The first do not contradict modern science,
their views are only divergent and different in exter-
nal form from that of science but not contradictory

EPILOGUE 215

to it. Nor is Spinoza's teaching contradictory to
Jewish Monotheism. What Jewish revelation em-
phasized most is the unity of the creative spirit, in
opposition to the plurality of forces; and this idea
has been expressed clearly also by Spinoza. The
Bible, stripped of its anthropomorphic expressions,
does not offer a single point which expressly con-
tradicts the teachings of Spinoza. Moses himself
says that the Knowledge of God is not found either
in heaven or in the distances of space, but that the
real revelation of God takes place within ourselves,
in our spirit and heart. A similar expression occurs
in the Talmud. "The Holy Presence never descended
to earth, nor did Moses ascend to heaven." Must
we consider the anthropomorphic expressions of the
Bible as dogmas.? If so, they will finally undermine
the fundamental dogma of Jewish teaching which is
so clearly enunciated in the Shema. Nor is the doc-
trine of the eternity of the spirit to be misunder-
stood. The eternity of the spirit does not begin
after death, but is, like God, always present.

An external God, who does not (manifest himself
to men as an immediate ever-present Creator, is not
the God of the Jews, Christians and Mohammedans,
and can become as little the religious ground of the
regenerated nations as pagan Polytheism and Pan-'
theism. A Godhead, of whom we know nothing, is
without influence on our social, spiritual and moral
life. It is only the creative God who will be the God
of the age of maturity of the social life. The ration-
alistic view of life suits only the now antiquated form

216 EPILOGUE

of Society, which is at present in the process of dis-
solution. Just as modern Nationalism is a reflection
of the spirit of revolution, so is modern rationalistic
supernaturalism a spiritual reflection of the reaction
against the progressive social tendencies.

IV. The Last Antagonism

In order to estimate truly the spiritual attitudes
toward life we must take into account the social
movements of which they are the result. The present
day philosophical point of view differs essentially
from that held during the last century. Not only
has science made tremendous progress during this
time, but it has been greatly influenced by philo-
sophical criticism and speculation, just as industry
has been essentially affected by democratic revolution
and the development of capitalism. The field of bat-
tle, the struggle itself and the contending forces
have been changed in the historical course of the
social movement, which began in the last century and
which we are still continuing. The speculative philos-
opher of the nineteenth century has as little sym-
pathy with the revolutionary philosopher of the
eighteenth as the liberal citizen of to-day has for the
revolutionist of that time. The oppressed industrial
producers of the last century are the lordly specula-
tors of our present-day Society. And even within
the productive class itself, a thorough process of
separation between its constituent elements has taken
place. The last resolution, that which we are now
witnessing, could not, therefore, have previously ere-

EPILOGUE 217

ated a perfected organization. The old, rigid insti-
tutions of feudal Society and the last dead residue
of dogmatism must first be dissected by the sharp
knife of criticism and analysis, into its elements,
before new social and spiritual creations can come
into being. In the course of the development of new
elements there came to the front a new antagonism
which did not exist before, and the reconciliation of
which is at present under discussion. The forces of
labor in the industrial world on the one hand, and
the investigators in the scientific field, on the other,
liberated from the bonds of feudalism and dogma-
tism alike, have brought forth the last antagonism,
namely, the one between labor and speculation. ■•■ In
the revolutionary atmosphere of free competition of
all labor forces, there were formed centers of gravity
which wiU ultimately absorb the individual produc-
tive forces and organize them for their own purpose.
Following the law of Gravitation, the fundamental
law of all life, the single atoms of laborers grouped
themselves around industrial, and the individual in-
vestigators around speculative centers. Not only in
the sphere of industry but even in the field of sci-
ence, it is no light task to oppose the attractive force
of the speculative centers.

In merely negating the speculative system, as in

1 The words "labor" and "speciilation" used by Hess here,
are employed in a double sense. Labor in the industrial sense,
as an economic factor, and labor as equivalent to investigation
and experimentation. The first is opposed to "speculation" in
its economic meaning, the second to "speculation" in its philo-
sophic meaning, namely, theorizing. — Translator.

218 EPILOGUE

merely destroying accumulated capital, we will gain
but little; for all life has a natural tendency toward
centralization, combination and organization. If the
real producers earnestly desire to free themselves
from the exploitation of the speculators, they must,
following the successful attempt of English working-
men, oppose to the mass of accumulated labor in the
hands of the captains of industry, on the one hand,
and in the heads of the philosophic speculators on
the other, the larger mass of the individual produc-
tions, as well as the results of investigations in the
scientific field. This applies to scientific material as
well as to industrial. Materials are only dead cap-
ital when they are not organized for further creation
and production. The same law governing all pro-
ductive life movements serve also for further crea-
tions out of the already gained materials. , The so-
called indestructibility of matter is nothing but the
persistence of the productive force inherent in mat-
ter even in its dissolution and decomposition! Should
the industrial and intellectual workers remain in indi-
vidual isolation; should they not centralize and or-
ganize their scattered forces and become speculative
in a cooperative way, the antagonism between labor
and speculation will, of necessity, remain stationary.
The final theoretical antagonism which can in some
measure be overcome, namely, that between philoso-
phy and the experimental sciences, between material-
ism and idealism, is nothing but the theoretical ex-
pression of the practical antagonism in social life.
The same attitude that the master displayed toward

EPILOGUE 219

the slave, the priest toward the uninitiated, and
later, the feudal lord toward the serf, the clerical
toward the secular, is finally assumed to-day by the
capitalist toward the workingman, the philosopher
toward the investigator, namely, the attitude of the
organized toward the unorganized and of the strong
toward the weak. The people faU short in regard
to the reconciliation of this antagonism. Such an
attitude leads only to decomposition and death, and
therefore Moses exclaimed to our people "Ye shall
be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy people."^
As industrial speculation, so philosophical specu-
lation, is a historical necessity, and its existence is
justified, as long as the productive labors and investi-
gations are not centralized and organized, as long
as they have not their own center of gravity and
equilibrium. "Absolute" speculation represented, be-
fore the revolutionary critical epoch, a governing,
compelling force. After this period, it is only a con-
trolling power, strange and hostile in its attitude
toward material labor. The root of this antagonism,
however, lies not in the malice of this or that class,
but is inherent in the history of the development of
the human race which, as long as it has not reached
its aim, the age of maturity, must pass toward its
goal through race and class struggles, just as the
human individual, while in the midst of his mental
development, is dominated by one-sided representa-
tions and tendencies.

In the course of human history, only one-sided
2 Exodus xix, 6.

220 EPILOGUE

movements have arisen in social life, the influences of
which have helped to engender one-sided views, repre-
sentations and conceptions. During the development
of organic or social life, there occurs always a divi-
sion of labor among the various parts of the organ-
isms which brings forth, along with the perfection
of special functions, a certain narrowness and one-
sidedness. In human life, this tendency often degen-
erates into a kind of monomania, the effects of which
are harmful to the human spirit. But when the per-
fected organism of the historical races reaches its
final stage of development, the various strivings of
history will also reach their ultimate harmony in a
perfected human society. Just as only after the com-
pletion of the organic life-sphere, namely, after the
creation of man, the Sabbath of Nature began, so
will the historical Sabbath begin only after the com- '
pletion of the development of social life, after the
creation of a harmonious social organization in
which production and consumption will be in a state
of equilibrium. We stand at present on the eve of
the historical Sabbath. Our age is still the age of
speculation. But speculation can, by its very nature,
be the inheritance of only a minority. What, then,
of the majority.''

Every life-sphere, which has reached the comple-
tion of its development, insures the continuity of its
existence, first, by means of reproduction, and, sec-
ondly, by establishing an equilibrium between pro-
duction and consumption. The social life-sphere
also will enter upon its age of maturity from the

EPILOGUE 221

moment when this point of view prevails in the social
economic movement. Where this point of view is
only shared by a few individuals, who utilize it for
private purposes, the age is dominated by specula-
tion. The essence of speculation consists in the ex-
ploitation of the reproductive sources of social life
for private purposes.

Life in general is a producing and consuming
activity. Science is universal economics which inves-
tigates and determines the amount and degree of pro-
duction and consumption in the various life-spheres
and epochs. Physiology is the economics of the or-
ganic life-sphere, and social economy is the physiol-
ogy of Society. The latter science shows us that
social life is still in its childhood epoch. Between
the stage of embryonic life, through which Society
had passed, and the stage of maturity and indepen-
dence, upon which it will enter, there lies the gap
which we can hardly bridge, namely, the revolution-
ary critical epoch, which gave birth to modem Soci-
ety, the period which made possible the independence
of" future social life from the past and laid the
foundation of a creative Society. What revolution
does for life, criticism accomplishes for ideas and
views. It unfastens the chains of traditional repre-
sentations which hold the present in the grip of the
past, opens the way toward a new independent life,
and, like revolution, considers itself independent of
the creative being itself, which tradition has repre-
sented as extra-mundane, as long as it has not redis-
covered that creative being in the world itself. Most

222 EPILOGUE

of our contemporaries continue to attack the external
"absolute" of tradition, but they do not discover the
real "Absolute," the creative center of all life, namely,
the equilibrium and harmony of all spiritual forces.
The few that have dared to make such a step were
finally lost in speculation.

Just as the new-born babe is not entirely indepen-
dent of its mother, as long as it is still being nour-
ished by her, so social life cannot be considered eman-
cipated until it has outgrown the nursing period.
The philosophical and industrial forms of specula-
tion employed by spiritual and material capitalists
and dominating the fields of scientific and industrial
labor, are the two breasts which nourish our Society,
and as a result, the child — Laboe — is strongly
bound to its mother — Capital, — the creative spirit
is chained to the former traditional achievements;
and finally, the new Society is made subject to its
ancient ghost. It is, therefore, the task of the intel-
lectual, as well as the industrial workers, to liberate
themselves from the domination of speculation. Sci-
entists and Socialists should work hand in hand for
the last liberation of humanity, for the emancipation
of all forms of labor from speculation. And their
efforts will certainly be successful, for we see that
scientists in Germany and industrial laborers in Eng-
land are gradually approaching the goal. But in
Germany, as well as in England, these efforts are
isolated; the impulse to unite both tendencies, the
scientific and the industrial, can come only from
the land of modem revolution and centralization —

EPILOGUE 223

France, on the one hand, and from the Jewish people
on the other, the people which has, from the begin-
ning of its history, had for its mission, the unity of
different tendencies of social life into one center of
activity.

If Spinoza laid the foundation for a definite recon-
ciliation between the two typical antithetical expres-
sions of the human genius which reached their culmi-
nating point in the creations of the Greeks and the
Jews, then it became the task of history after Spinoza
to develop the seed which he had sown, into a definite
reconciliation of all antagonism in the life of nations.

German philosophy undoubtedly rendered a great
service when it succeeded in overcoming, on the basis
laid by Spinoza's conception of Jewish monotheism,
the opposition of atheism to theism, which was ex-
pressed so clearly by the revolutionary thinkers.
But at the same time, this philosophy lacked a posi-
tive foundation in life and experimental science, and
as a result, it must have necessarily rome into con-
flict with the latter. The last form f antagonism,
which is still to be reconciled, is not the one between
Monotheism and Polytheism, as in antiquity, nor
between Moslem Monism and Christian Dualism, as
in the Mediasval Ages, nor between Theism and Athe-
ism, but between speculative philosophy and experi-
mental science. The German scientists are called to
the mission of reconciling this last form of antago-
nism by work like Moleschott's, which wiU ultimately
lead to the merging of science into philosophy and
philosophy into science. It is in Germany, where

224 EPILOGUE

experimental science will be emancipated by means
of a cooperative activity on the part of the scien-
tists, to gather all data collected in different fields
and interpret them from a general point of view, so
as to bring all the various parts into a harmonious,
organic whole.

V. The Last Race Rule

The more perfect a people is in its own special
calling, the more it appreciates the particular serv-
ices of other peoples, and the more willingly it bor-
rows from them the ideas, conceptions and inventions
which are necessary to modern life. This tendency is
especially noticeable in the German people and it cer-
tainly does honor to the German spirit.

The Jewish nation, therefore, must not hesitate to
follow France in all matters relating to the political
and social regeneration of the nations, and especially
in what concerns its own rebirth as a nation, on the
one hand, and in everything which bears upon the
revival of intellectual life in Germany on the other.
Only a stupid reaction, which is consciously or un-
consciously swept along by its own alarm, can bear
us malice when we sympathize with France in all mat-
ters of a social, political nature, and yet try to
absorb and assimilate everything good in German
spiritual and intellectual life.

The cause of national regeneration of oppressed
peoples can expect no help and sympathy from Ger-
many. The problem of regeneration, which dates not
from the second restoration of the kingdom in

EPILOGUE 226

France, but goes back to the French Revolution,
the definite solution of which 'began in Europe only
recently, with the outbreak of the Italian war^ was
received in Germany with mockery and derision ; and
in spite of the fact that the question is an urgent one
and is uppermost almost everywhere, even in Ger-
many itself, the Germans have named it the "Nation-
ality trick." Our Jewish democrats, also, display
their patriotism in accusing the French and the peo-
ples sympathizing with them, of conquering designs.
The French, say the German politicians, as well as
the allies, will only be exploited by the second Mon-
archy, for purposes of restraining liberty rather
than promoting it. It is, therefore, according to the
deep logic of these politicians, the duty of the Ger-
man to be obedient to the Kaiser and the kings, in
order that they should be able to defeat the con-
quering desires of the French. These politicians and
patriots forget, that if Germany were to conquer
France and Italy to-day, it would only result in
placing the entire German people under police law;
and in depriving the Jews of their civil rights, in a
worse manner than after the "War of Liberation,"
when the only reward granted by the Germans to
their Jewish brethren in arms was exclusion from
civil life. And, truly, the German people and the
German Jews do not deserve any better lot when
they allow themselves, in spite of the examples of
history, to be entrapped by Mediaeval reaction.

Scientific studies, together with my life experi-
ences, have matured my political sympathies for

226 EPILOGUE

France, especially after I learned to know the people.
I have formulated my thoughts in the following sen-
tences :

Social life-tendencies are, like spiritual life-views,
typical and primal race creations. The entire past
history of humanity originally moved only in the
circle of race and class struggle. The race struggle
is the primal one, and the class struggle secondary.
The last dominating race is the German. But, thanks
to the French people, which succeeded not only in
reconciling race antagonism in its own land, but also
uprooted every form of race domination within the
borders of France, the race struggle is nearing its
end. And along with the cessation of race antago-
nism, the class struggle will also come to a stand-
still. The equalization of all classes of Society will
necessarily follow the emancipation of the races, for
it will ultimately become only a scientific question of
social economics.

Yet it seems that a final race struggle is unavoid-
able, if the German politicians, failing to grasp the
situation, do not attempt to oppose the tremendous
current of reaction, which will ultimately involve
Germany in a collision with the Romance nations,
and win also entrap the progressive German demo-
crats in the net of Romantic demagogy. Mediaeval
reaction succeeded twice during the present century,
once during the "War of Liberation," and for the
second time, during the Italian war, in defeating the
modern efforts of the German people for political
and social regeneration, by inflaming the race domi-

EPILOGUE 227

nance instincts in the hearts of the lords of war, who
think themselves lords of the land by divine right,
and consider the people as their rightly inherited
slaves. It is not impossible, that in case of a war
between Italy and Austria, German democracy will,
for the third time, be engulfed by the whirl of reac-
tion and join her in a war for race dominance, the
results of which will be detrimental to progress. But
out of the last race struggle, which Ferdinand Freili-
grath has so vividly depicted in his vision "At the
Birch Tree," there wUl arise no new domination of
any race, and the equality of all world historical
peoples will follow as a necessary result,

VI. A Chaptee of HiSToaY

Nations like individuals pass, in the course of their
development, through certain definite life-periods.
Not every age is adapted for every stage of develop-
ment; but every age has its particular degree of
progress. And if a people is belated in its develop-
ment or has missed one of the stages, it will be very
difficult for it to follow the harmonious march of
nations toward progress.

Germany at the time of the Reformation, occupied
a high position in the field of social and political
development. Even the masses were permeated with
the spirit of social-political reform, the like of which
was seen only in England in the seventeenth century
and in France in the eighteenth. The sixteenth cen-
tury was the epoch of the German Renaissance. Ger-
many, during that period, gave birth to a great re-

228 EPILOGUE

form, but inasmuch as it did not succeed in becoming
a truly national reform, it only divided the nation
into two. The political-social revolution of the peas-
ants, on the other hand, was finally drowned in their
own blood.

Had not the uprising of the peasants been shame-
fully betrayed by the leaders of German culture and
civilization, the development of the nation would, at
that time, have already assumed a normal form, and
not only would Germany be the equal of the other
civUized nations, but as the first-born modem nation,
would have held the most prominent place among
them.

The might of the mediaeval "German Sword" would
have been transformed into the nobler and higher
force of the modern German spirit. The nation which
overthrew the world empire of Rome, in order to
substitute for it the mediaeval feudal power, would
have been the first to give the signal for the over-
throw of its own institutions, the overthrow of the
last form of race dominance. But Fate willed other-
wise. The last chosen people, like the first, must
atone for its sins before it is granted the privilege
of leading its historical role, before it will be worthy
to enter into the modem alliance of humanity, which
is based on the equality of all historical nations.

The external causes which brought about the nip-
ping in the bud of the German revolution are well
known. Charles the Fifth, who, at the time of the
awakening of a national consciousness among the
historical nations, strove to realize his dream of a

EPILOGUE 229

world German-Roman empire, was one of the chief
factors in causing the destruction of the popular
revolution. This monarch missed his great opportu-
nity to raise Germany, by means of supporting social,
political and religious reform, to the dignity of a
useful modern State, to liberate it from the yoke of
Feudalism and save it from disruption, and finally
to create for himself a nation and to give to the
people a real king, to create a modern monarchy
which would support all the oppressed peoples and
terrify the conquering mediasval lords of war. But,
through his wavering conduct, the contrary result
occurred. The nobility could free themselves from
the subjection to the Emperor, on the one hand, by
joining with the new religious reform, and from the
influence of the people, on the other, by suppressing
the political social uprising; and consequently they
followed this course of action. This antinational
activity was furthered, not only by the contradictory
policy of the German Emperor and the ambition of
the nobles, but also by the political inability of the
leader of the Reformation. Luther, with his doc-
trinal stupidity, thought it more advantageous to
join the nobility rather than the common people and
finally betrayed the peasants, just as, even to-day,
the German doctrinaires are always ready to betray
the people whenever they attempt to take the demo-
cratic movement seriously. And yet, in spite of all
these difficulties, the German revolution would have
triumphed, had it not been for the fact that the
cities, the seat of a social class, which had immediate

230 EPILOGUE

interest in the downfall of Feudalism, were too nar-
row-minded and cowardly at heart to see the great
importance of the peasant uprising and to struggle
for their own liberation. Having been delivered into
the hands of their enemies by their natural allies,
denounced in shameful orations by the German re-
former, forsaken by the Emperor and butchered by
the hereditary war lords, the German peasants were
forced to abandon the revolution, along with which
was also nipped in the bud the germ of Germany's
regeneration. And from that moment, the German
nations began to descend lower and lower in the scale
of progress. Luther, who lacked nO' insight into
human affairs, saw it and expressed himself sorrow-
fully about it.

The punishment for this great crime against the
people on the part of the nobles and citizens came
but too soon. In the Thirty Years' War, the Ger-
man cities had to submit involuntarily to the sentence
which they themselves, by their breaking away from
the German revolution, had thus pronounced. They
could then see that "the history of the world is the
world's Court of Justice," but they could not avert
the fated doom. For at the time when the English
revolution raised our proud neighbor to the height
of culture and civilization and laid the foundation of
its present world power, Germany was bleeding white
through its civil and religious wars, and this process
was repeated many times. Even the French Revo-
lution, which taught all European nations to love
and esteem liberty, brought to Germany only the

EPILOGUE 231

shame of foreign rule and the still worse domination
of the reaction, which since then settled so securely
upon the back of the German people, that not even
the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 could, in any way,
overthrow it from its seat. And just as at the time
of the first French Revolution, German literature and
philosophy, which were then at their height, could
not protect the ghost of a German empire from its
fate, so are all our orators, writers and poets of
to-day unable to revive the political corpse of Ger-
many, the soul of which had departed long ago in
the unfortunate peasant war. Great popular leaders
and patriotic heroes do not descend from the skies,
but grow out of the deep soil of the people and its
history. When the latter is arrested in the midst of
its flight toward progress, the political genius of the
nation must necessarily be extinguished.

And this is just what happened in Germany. At
the time of the peasant war, Germany possessed
great statesmen, who united in their persons patriot-
ism and modernity and were also able to train the
people and implant in them the same traits. To-day
these people lack the common soil and traditions
necessary for development of statesmen of such
stamp. All reminiscences of German greatness go
back either to mediaeval times or further back to the
primitive forests. The present German patriotism
is reactionary and has no root in the life of the
people. As long as it is impossible to realize the
aim of a modem German movement, so long can
there exist no modem German people.

232 EPILOGUE

Without regeneration there can be no people, and
without a people, in the modem sense of the word,
there can be no modem patriotism. Present-day
German patriotism, which expresses itself only in
verbal protestations against our neighbors, while it
has neither the courage nor the talent to occupy
itself with the work of regeneration, is only an air
bubble. , Germany does not suifer from the oppres-
sion of a foreign yoke, nor is there any fear that it
will suffer in the future, as the patriots would have
us believe, but it is ailing as a result of its murdered
revolution; it can no more make the same move
toward progress without the help of the other pro-
gressive European nations. The Germans are too
proud to join forces with those nations which suc-
ceeded in liberating themselves from the Christian
medieval spirit. Hence they will have to be sub-
jected to a mediffival reaction, which they did not
know how to defeat at the right moment.

The last opportunity, which offered us the eleva-
tion of the German people to the degree of a modern
nation, namely, the "War of Liberation,"-^ ended
only in a victory for reaction; for the war against
France was a war of reactionary Europe against the
spirit of the French Revolution. And were Ger-
many to go to war again with any nation, the same
result would be repeated; a victory of the army

i"The War of liberation," referred to by Hess, is the war
of the year 1813-14, which Germany, in conjunction with her
allies, Russia and Great Britain, waged against Napoleon. —
Trantlator.

EPILOGUE 283

would be a victory of reaction. So deeply have we
sunk, that we are forced to hail a defeat of the army
as a happy event in the history of the German peo-
ple. Indeed, "the history of the world is the world's
Court of Justice." We must atone now for the sins
we committed in the sixteenth century.

Who can foresee the catastrophes that may befall
us as a result of our arrested development.'' Cer-
tainly, we hope that the struggle of the German peo-
ple will come to an end with the equalization of all
oppressed peoples which struggle to attain the same
aim. But by what means the goal will be reached, no
one knows. What peaceful or warlike German
patriot dares to think about it.''

The age of race dominance is at an end. Even
the smallest people, whether it belongs to the Ger-
manic or Romance, Slavic or Finnic, Celtic or Semitic
races, as soon as it advances its claims to a place
among the historical nations, will find sympathetic
supporters in the powerful civilized Western nations.
Like the patriots of other unfortunate nations, the
German patriots can attain their aim only by means
of a friendly alliance with the progressive and power-
ful nations of the world. But if they continue to
conjure themselves, as well as the German people,
with the might and glory of the "German Sword,"
they will only add to the old unpardonable mistakes,
grave new ones ; they will only play into the hands of
the reaction, and drag all Germany along with them.

NOTES

Note I

The Talmud, as well as the Midrash, ascribe the
redemption of Israel from Egypt to the chastity of
the Jewish women and their faithfulness to the Jew-
ish nationality. It is especially emphasized that the
Jews in Egypt retained their national names and
language and did not adopt the names and language
of the Egyptians and were thus more worthy of
redemption than the exiles of later generations, when
this form of assimilation was a frequent phenomenon.
Witness the following passages :^

"Our ancestors did not change their names in
Egypt. Those who went down to Egypt went by the
names of Reuben and Simeon, and their descendants,
who left Egypt, have continued to bear the same
names. Judah was not changed to Rufus, nor Reu-
ben to Lulianus nor Joseph to Lustus nor Benjamin
to Alexander."

Even our greatest prophet and lawgiver, Moses, is
severely blamed for his posing before the daughters
of Jethro as an Egyptian, and not as a Hebrew.
And because of that, the Midrash asserts, God re-
fused his plea to be buried in the Holy Land; while
Joseph, who never denied his descent, was rewarded
by being carried to the Holy Land and buried there.

1 Midrash Rabba, Numbers, Ch. 20, also Canticles, Ch. i,
Leviticus, Ch. 33.

235

236 NOTES

Said Moses to God : "Lord of the world, the bones
of Joseph were interred in the Holy Land ; why dost
thou not grant me the same privilege?" Said the
Holy One, blessed be He: "The one who acknowl-
edged his land deserved to rest there, but the one
who denied it will not be interred in her sacred soil.
Whence do we know that Joseph acknowledged his
land? We know it from the following: When his
mistress complained of Joseph to her husband in the
words 'Behold he has brought here a Hebrew to
mock at us,' Joseph did not deny that he was a
Hebrew but affirmed it and, when brought before
Pharaoh, he proudly exclaimed: 'I was stolen from
the land of the Hebrews.' He was therefore buried
in his own land. But thou, who didst deny thy land,
wilt not be buried in thy land ; for when the daugh-
ters of Jethro said, "An Egyptian saved us from
the hands of the shepherds," thou didst hear it and
wast silent and therefore thou wilt not be buried in
thy land.^

Note H

The extra-mundane point of support which the
Jewish historical religion has in common with the
Natural Religion of the Hindus, is the point of con-
tact between the Jewish and the Pagan, the Semitic
and the Indo-Germanic world views, the germ out of
which the mediasval Christian and the modern scien-
tific views of life have grown. Here, in this punctum
2 Midrash Rabba Deuteronomy, Ch. 2.

NOTES 237

saliens, there meet the two great mental expressions
of the two great historical races. Both recognized
and expressed clearly in their oldest literary docu-
ments, that the ordinary relations of life become
cumbersome to man as soon as his spirit awakens in
him, and that holiness then becomes a necessary con-
dition of salvation. Both dreamed of a golden age
in the distant past, of a Paradise lost which, how-
ever, they hope that man will once more regain. But
in human life there goes on a continuous struggle
between the elementary demands and the human ten-
dencies which contain the germ of the harmonious
unity of life, the goal of the history of humanity.
To help the human spirit in its struggle, both relig-
ions preach restraint from the pleasures of life,
which bring only death and misery in their wake, as
a means to attain holiness and salvation. But there
is a difference in their preaching, and this difference
espresses the essential separation of the two world
views. The ascetic tendency of the Indo-Germanic
race, the contemplative character of which has never
spurred it on to an active life, finally expressed itself
in a complete renunciation and negation of life (viz. :
Brahmanism and Buddhism). The Jews, on the
other hand, from the beginning of their history and
throughout the storms of their exile, have clung fast
to their mission, namely, to bring about the sanctifi-
cation, not only of individual life, but also of the
social life of Man, to further its development and to
prepare humanity for the Messianic time which will
be an age of perfected development and holiness.

288 NOTES

The spirit of Hindu wisdom found its best and
purest expression in the writings of a pure-blooded
German, Schopenhauer, whose works ought to form
a part of the mental equipment of every educated
man. Schopenhauer represents, within the Christian-
German world, the most decided contrasting tendency
to the teachings of Hegel. The latter allowed the
historical, the genetic view of the world, the Jewish
view, to be the generating point of the spirit and
thus raised the concrete Jewish historical religion to
the heights of an abstract spiritual philosophy.
Schopenhauer, on the other hand, negates historical
religion completely, and along with it, historical de-
velopment, nay, even life itself in all its forms, ideal
as well as real. This destructive nihilism, which is an
original trait of the Indo-Germanic race, and from
the beginning found its clearest expression in India,
gradually undermined the entire structure of Natural
Religion and finally brought about its complete dis-
solution. Only the genetic view of life, that of Juda-
ism, which incorporated a partial negation of the
natural world, without at the same time minimizing
the value of the creative human factor in history,
wag able to enrich the world with a more confident
and self-reliant conception which pieced together the
fragments of a tottering world and united them once
more into an integral world by means of the hope
for a future regeneration.

If we agree with Schopenhauer that the creative
being is only an elementary natural force and not
the creative genius of all historical development in

NOTES 289

Nature as well as in History, we must also accept
the world as a product of self-contradictory and
self-destructive forces, the striving of which, ex-
pressed in Schopenhauer's formula, "The will to
live", is without aim and purpose, and offers no sat-
isfaction to the moral and intellectual man. Only
historical religion, which sees in the struggle of nat-
ural forces, as in that of individuals and nations,
only stages of development, and which carries within
itself the confidence of the final victory of the Divine
Power, needs not negate life in order to reach its
sanctification. And even the very sanctity of life,
which Hinduism preaches, is, in its content, only a
contemplative egoism which is of little use to human-
ity. Every striving toward a better state of exist-
ence, whether it be an ideal or a real one, in this
world or in the next, appears to this contemplative
egoism as pure silliness. Striving is conceived by it
as an attempt to perpetuate the raw elementary
struggle, the hellu/m ommkvm contra omnes, the war
of all against all. This anti-genetic view manifests
itself in all social movements as a conservative or re-
actionary force. Schopenhauer himself, as is known,
turned over his capital to a Berlin Society, the pur-
pose of which was to carry on a campaign against
the champions of the people. His endorsement of
Christianity applies only to its negative phase, in
which lies its essential difference from Judaism,
namely, its disparagement of the present life, but
does not include its positive side, the exaltation of
regeneration, by means of which Christianity con-

240 NOTES

verted the pagan world to the Jewish religious point
of view and thus reconciled it with life.

We do not, however, want to deny the fact that
contrary results have often occurred. The holders
of the contemplative view, who have sometimes gone
so far as to negate the very will to live, have at times
been able to create great artistic works and also to
enjoy them, while those who have followed the "King-
dom of Heaven", namely, the mission to organize
social life on the divine plan, have by no means had
their way strewn with roses.

Note III

In 1858, there appeared, at Leipzig, a work writ-
ten by Otto Wigand under the title Two discourses
concerning the desertion 'from Judaism, being an
analysis of the views on this question expressed in the
recently published correspondence of Dr. Abraham
Geiger. The author endeavors to prove that the con-
clusions of Dr. Geiger are untenable both from a
philosophic and from a social standpoint. Here are
his social arguments:

"My friend," says the author, "there are certain
conclusions which you cannot escape. The stamp of
slavery, if we may use this expression, which cen-
turies of oppression have deeply impressed upon the
Jewish features, might have been obliterated by the
blessed hand of regained civil liberty. The gait of
the Jews, buoyed up by the happy reminiscences of
the victory won in the struggle for the noble posses-
sion of liberty, might have been straighter and

NOTES 241

prouder. The Jewish face may certainly beam with
pride, as it views the tremendous progress made by
the Jews in a brief time, their mighty flight to the
spiritual height upon which they now stand, which
is especially notable considering the fact that their
poets and writers at whose greatness the nation is
astonished, and of whose talents the entire people
takes account, have sprung from those who, a gen-
eration ago, could hardly converse correctly in the
language of the land. Such a state of affairs should
undoubtedly call forth admiration in the hearts of
the present German generation, and yet, in spite of
these achievements, the wall separating Jew and
Christian still stands unshattered, for the watchman
that guards them is one who will not be caught nap-
ping. It is the race difference between the Jewish
and Christian populations. If this assertion of mine
surprises or astonishes you, I ask you to consider
whether it is not almost a rule with the Germans that
race differences generate prejudices which cannot be
overcome by any manifestation of good- will on the
part of the other race. The relations existing be-
tween the German and the Slavic populations in
Bohemia, in Hungary and Transylvania, between
the Germans and the Danes in Schleswig, or between
the Irish and the Anglo-Saxon settlers in Ireland,
illustrates well the power of race antagonism in the
German world. In all these countries the different
elements of the population have lived side by side
for centuries, sharing equally all political rights, and
yet, so strong are the national or racial differences,

242 NOTES

that a social amalgamation of the various elements
of the population is even at the present day quite
unthinkable. And what comparison is there between
the race differences of a German and Slav, a Celt and
Anglo-Saxon, or a German and Dane, and the race
antagonism between the children of the sons of Jacob,
who are of Asiatic descent, and the descendants of
Teut and Herman, the ancestors of whom have inhab-
ited Europe from time immemorial; between the
proud and the tall blond German and the small of
figure, black-haired and black-eyed Jew? Races
which differ in such a degree oppose each other in-
stinctively and against such opposition reason and
good sense are powerless."

These expressions are certainly frank and sincere
in their meaning, though they by no means prove the
conclusions to which the author wishes to arrive,
namely, the desirability of conversion ; for conver-
sion will not turn a Jew into a German. But they
at least contain the confession, that an instinctive
race antagonism triumphs in Germany above all hu-
manitarian sentiments. The "pure human nature"
resolves itself, according to the Germans, in the
nature of pure Germanism. The "high-bom blond
race" looks with contempt upon the regeneration of
the "black-haired, quick-moving mannikins," without
regard to whether they are descendants of the Bib-
lical patriarchs, or of the ancient Romans and Gauls.

While other civilized western nations mention the
shameful oppression to which the Jews were formerly
subjected, only as an act of theirs of which they are

NOTES 24.3

ashamed, the German remembers only the "stamp of
slavery" which he Impressed upon "the Jewish phy-
siognomy."

In a fevilleton which appeared recently in the
BoTvnerzdtwng, entitled "Bonn Eighty Years Ago,"
the author speaks of the Jews in mocking terms and
describes them as people who lived in separate quar-
ters and supported themselves by petty trades. I
believe that we should wonder less at the fact that
the Jews, who were forbidden to participate in the
important branches of industry and commerce, lived
on petty trade, than at the fact that they were able
to live at aU in those centuries of oppression. As a
matter of fact, almost every means of existence, in-
cluding the right of domicile, was denied them. It
was only by means of bribes that every Jewish gen-
eration could procure anew the "privilege" not to be
driven out of their homes in Bonn, and they felt
happy indeed if, in spite of the contract, they were
not robbed of their property and exiled, or attacked
by a fanatical mob in the bargain. I, also, can tell
a story of "eighty years ago." A Jew won the high
favor of the Kurfuerst of Bonn, that he and his
descendants were granted the "privilege" to settle
in Ebendich.^

Note IV

Gabriel Riesser, the editor of the magazine, The
Jew, as far as I can recoUect, never fell into the
error, common to all modern German Jews, that the
1 Ebendich is a village near Bonn.

244 NOTES

emancipation of the Jews is irreconcilable with the
development of Jewish Nationalism. He demanded
emancipation for the Jews on the one condition only,
that of their receiving all civil and political rights
in return for their assuming all civil and political
burdens.

Suppose we assume that the Jews had not only
a national religion, but a real nationality, a land and
a State, and that, as happens with all other nations,
a number of this sovereign State were to settle in
foreign countries, such as England, France or other
countries, and to live there for centuries, would those
countries deny them the right of naturalization if
they, in return for civil and political rights under-
took to discharge all duties and bear all the burdens
of the State? Is it not sufficient for a person to be
bom in a country, or even to prove that he has lived
in a country for a number of years, to be entitled
to citizenship after the expiration of a certain time?
In countries which stand at present at the height
of civilization, this is an accepted fact, but not in
Germany. Here, the Jew, who has lived in the land
for centuries, must first deny his race, his descent,
his traditional memories, his type and temperament,
nay, even his very character, in order to prove him-
self worthy to live among a people which will not
contribute anything to modem civil and politicalHfe,
unless it overcomes its inherited race prejudices. <The
Jews, on the other hand, have never been dominated
by prejudice nor actuated by the desire of race
mastery. The fundamental law of the Mosaic polity

NOTES 245

enunciates explicitly the equality of all inhabitants
of the land of Israel, without regard as to whether
they are Jews or foreigners.

Note V

At the time of Mendelssohn's activity in Germany,
there lived in Poland a man by the name of Israel
Bal Shem. He, like Mendelssohn, had dreamed very
little that he would some day become the founder of
a sect. And yet, just as in spite of his personal
wishes, Mendelssohn was proclaimed the originator
of the Reform movement, so it was through Israel
Bal Shem that the Chasidic sect of the Slavic coun-
tries was called into life. The word chasid, in its
literal meaning, is the appellation given to every
pious Jew and connotes, unlike the word "pietist"
in Protestant Christianity, no secondary meaning.
There have been Chasidim among the Jews at all
times, just as there were long before the so-called
Bal Shem, Jews who devoted themselves to the mys-
tic teachings of the Kabbala and who were said to
perform miracles by means of practical Kabbala.
But there were also, on the other hand, in former
generations, Jews who participated in the culture of
the land where they dwelt, in the same measure as
the Jews of Germany since Mendelssohn have par-
ticipated in German culture, and yet they, unlike
the latter, did not call themselves reformers. There-
fore, if Rationalism among the German Jews, on the
one hand, and Chasidism among the Slavonian Jews
on the other, did call forth a grave schism among

246 NOTES

the Jews of those countries, the causes for it lie not
in the nature of the tendencies themselves but in the
peculiar condition of the ages of their birth. Espe-
cially is this true of Slavonic lands, where the spirit
of the times had not penetrated the consciousness of
the masses.

The Chasidim, like the Jewish Essenes in the last
period of antiquity, and like the Christian pietists
at the end of the Middle Ages, represent a tendency
which emphasizes more the inner essence of religion
than the mere external performance of its precepts.
The Chasidim do not observe pedantically all the
minutias of Jewish law, though they do not deny nor
question in the least, the authority of both the writ-
ten and the oral law; but they believe that both the
written and the oral law are an expression of the
spirit, and that in this consists their real value. Not
the form, but the spirit which created it, is for them
the holy and the sacred. And yet they are not less
ascetical than other pious Jews but observe strictly
all the laws of morality and purity. Their answer
to the rabbis who accuse them of transgressing cer-
tain laws and precepts is "We are not subjected to
the Midath hadin, i.e., God's strict measure of judg-
ment, but to the Midath harachamim, i.e., His meas-
ure of grace and mercy. The philosophical aspect
of Chasidism, from the point of view of theoretical
Kabbala, is developed by Rabbi Samuel of Wilna in
his book, the Tanya. The disciples of this philoso-
pher call themselves Chabad (a word that is formed
from the initials of three Hebrew words, Chokmah —

NOTES 247

wisdom, Bina — reason, and Daath — knowledge. This
sect is widely scattered among the Jews and is even
represented in Jerusalem.

As regards the form which Chasidism assumed
among the Jewish masses of Poland and other Sla-
vonic countries, as well as in Hungary, it is undoubt-
edly not free from gross superstitions ; yet the crit-
ics, who rightly combat this degenerating tendency
of Chasidism do not, after all, seem to conceive the
proper essence nor the historical importance of
Chasidism. The rabbis, as well as the Rationalists,
have attempted to declare Chasidism a heresy; but
their arrows of excommunication had as little effect
as the criticism of the Rationalists, against a spir-
itual tendency which was, like Reform, the product
of the age, and, though of an unconscious nature,
and perhaps because of that, of great importance.
The Reform movement in Grermany rose only after
modern life had completely undermined mediaeval
Judaism and closed up its life source. It could,
therefore, only utilize the remnants of a Judaism
torn away from its main trunk, as timber or orna-
ments for its essentially non-Jewish temple. Chasid-
ism, on the other hand, built its house and developed
within the folds of the living spirit of a Judaism
which was influenced, more instinctively than con-
sciously, by the spirit of modern times, and thus
formed a transition from mediaeval Judaism to a
regenerated Judaism, which is still to be conceived as
being in the process of development. The great good
which will result from a combination of Chasidism

248 NOTES

with the national movement is almost incalculable.
Chasidism makes great gains in the great Jewish
centers of the East. Even the rabbis, who heretofore
have declared Chasidism a heresy, are beginning to
understand that there are only two alternatives for
the great Jewish masses of Eastern Europe; either
to be absorbed along with the reformers, by the
gradually penetrating external culture, or to avert
this catastrophe by an inner regeneration of which
Chasidism is certainly a forerunner.

Although the Chasidim are without social organi-
zation, , they live in socialistic fashion. The house
of the rich man is always open to the poor and the
latter is as much at home there as he is in his own
house. They seem to have taken as their motto the
saying in Aboth : "He who says what is mine is thine
and what is thine is thine is a saint"^ (Aboth, v:13).
A sect which practises such self-abnegation and
whose members are capable of great religious enthu-
siasm must have for its foundation something more
than mere crudeness and ignorance.^

1 According to the Mishnah in Aboth, there are four points
of view as regards "Mine" and "Thine." The iirst has already
been discussed by us in the third letter. It is the ordinary
bourgeois rule of conduct, namely, "Everyone for himself."
The second is that of the boor — ^the Am Haaretz, who would
share the riches of the wealthy and give him in exchange his
own meager share, changing places with him, so to speak.
The third is the view of the Chaaid who says, "mine is thine,"
without desiring anything in return. The fourth is the attitude
of the wicked who desires the property of others without
giving anything in return.

2 Hess's estimate of the Chasidim and Chasidism is exagger-
ated. Chasidism does not represent a great spiritual revolu-

NOTES 249

Note VI

The Greeks had sanctified and worshiped Nature
in their religious cult only in its finished and har-
monious form, but not in its creative and becoming
aspect. Man, also, had been deified in the Grecian
world only as a complete organization, as a being
who stands at the height of organic life, but not as
the representative of a new life sphere; not as a
moral and social being, who is to be looked upon as
in the midst of becoming and developing, as is the
case with Christianity, the descendant of the his-
torical religion of Judaism. The Jews, on the other

tion in the Wstory of Judaism, as some assert, nor was it a fore-
runner of the great inner regeneration, as Hess would have ns
believe. Its latest development certainly does not entitle it to
that exalted position. Only one or two of its leaders have risen
to a philosophic conception of Judaism. Equally exaggerated is
the attribution to the Cbasidim of an anti-legal tendency and
the supplying of it with philosophic reasons. On the con-
trary, the great majority of the Chasidim are more careful
observers of all the minutise of the law than their opponents.
It is true that law-breakers were found among the leaders of
the Chasidim, especially in the early days of the sect, but their
reason for law-breaking was of more material nature than the
philosophic distinction between kernel and husk, though they
certainly endeavored to reduce their transgressions to a re-
ligious system. But to take them seriously and to charge
their actions to the account of Cbasidism, is pure exaggeration.
Hess, however, knew very little about the Chasidim and derived
his information from books, and was thus often grossly mis-
informed. He attributes the founding of the Chabad to one,
Samuel of Wilna, a totally unknown personality, when it is
well known that the founder was Shneor Zalman of Ladie who
was also the author of the Tanya. Wilna, on the other hand,
was the fortress of opposition to Chasidism. — Translator.

260 NOTES

hand, had turned the tables, deifying the becoming;
worshiping the God whose very name expresses past,
present and future. Even tlie cosmic and organic
life spheres, which are fdready completed in this uni-
versal epoch, are not considered by the Bible as
eternal and unchangeable, but viewed from the cre-
ative standpoint. The Bible begins with the creation
of the world and the declaration of the natural Sab-
bath, but the prophets have gone further and com-
pleted the process, embracing as they did the entire
history of human development and foreseeing the
final historical Sabbath. The tendency to view Grod
in history, not only in the history of humanity, but
also in the history of the cosmic and organic world,
is an essential expression of the Jewish spirit. This
striving after the recognition of God is developed
in historical studies, through observation of histori-
cal facts; but in nature-study, it posits a certain
mental direction as a starting-point, one that is to-
tally unknown to modem scientists. Goethe and
Humboldt were utterly opposed to the tendency of
spiritualizing Nature, which is so closely united with
the Jewish God-idea.

The Greeks sanctified the totality of Nature, in-
cluding man as a complete product; the Jews sanc-
tified the totality of history, including that of the
organic and cosmic life; and the Christian deified
and sanctified the individual. Individuality had thus
found its complete expression through Christian
apotheosis. Such a view does man both justice and
injustice; for in order to delineate the rights of the

NOTES 251

individual, man must be conceived abstractly and
not as he really exists, united with Nature and his-
tory, family and country. The fall of the ancient
world and the entry of the Germanic race upon the
arena of history have brought about both the
strengthening of individuality and its one-sidedness,
which to-day is undermining individuality, but true
personality wiU rise again when individualism will be
united with other higher tendencies. The realization
of this higher unity can be made possible only by
viewing the Jewish historical religion in a scientific
manner. The religion which will be raised to a sci-
ence is none other than the Bible religion, which
preaches the genesis and the unity of cosmic, or-
ganic and social life, and to the development and
spread of which, the genius of the Jews after their
regeneration as an independent nation, will be de-
voted.

Note VII

At the boundary line of time, which led from the
natural, organic life of the prehistoric races to the
social life of the historical nations, the first, accord-
ing to the story of the Book of Genesis, were doomed
to destruction with the rather unintelligible words,
"My spirit wUl not dwell forever in man because he
is flesh." Everything which is generated must event-
ually disappear. Nothing in existence persists eter-
nally, neither an atom nor an entire planet, neither
the germ out of which whole generations had devel-
oped, nor the highest being of the earth, man, "be-

262 NOTES

cause he is flesh" and must therefore follow the way
of all flesh, namely, death and dissolution.

All nations of antiquity had their legends about
the final catastrophe of all organic life. But it was
left to our Jewish genetic view, which had penetrated'
deeply into the very essence of the created world, to
conceive "being" as "becoming," a conception which
reconciles the antithesis of life and death, and sees
reality as an everlasting succession of birth and
rebirth.

The anti-genetic, pagan yiew of the world, which
taught the eternity of being, has avoided, whenever
possible, the question of becoming. But modem sci-
ence has forced this old view to withdraw from its
position. The phenomenon of the rise and decay of
individual entities — and all temporal-spatial exist-
ence is individual, namely, limited — looms so largely
in the whole organic life-sphere, that the pagan view,
of the eternity of being long ago recognized its dan-
gerous position and sought refuge in the theory of
the pre-existence of the germs or atoms.

\_Note — ^What follows is too abstruse to reproduce
in its entirety. We will therefore only give the gist
of Hess's arguments, omitting the scientific proofs.]

Hess attempts to disprove first' the theory of the
preexistence of the germ, by asserting that the germ
itself is being regenerated through the process of
metabolism and so is the body constantly rebuilt
after its full development and full growth by the
process of continual cell formation. The germ,
therefore, is not a fixed preexistent thing, but only

NOTES 263

a stage in the flowing process of life. This process
runs in a cycle, embracing also the phenomenon
which is apparently the opposite of life, namely,
death. But in reality, death is only a step in the
great process of life ; for every new formation of life
is preceded by the dissolution of its preceding form.

Moreover^ not only are germs fixed and themselves
generated from organic matter, but they are even
sometimes formed from inorganic matter. And this
was certainly the case at the beginning of the devel-
opnient of the life-sphere. Cases of spontaneous gen-
eration, i.e., cases where life springs up anew without
a preceding life, occur often. He quotes a number
of experiments and testimonies of travelers to cor-
roborate his view. Hess, as a philosophic creationist,
who sees in life as well as in other spheres of the
universe new combinations, cannot adopt the Dar-
winian view, which applies rather a mechanical expla-
nation to the origin of species. He combats this
view and believes that the species are constant and
do not pass into one another by mutation, but new
species arise in a spontaneous manner through the
mediation of existing species.

The third point which Hess endeavors to establish
is the perishability of atoms. He attempts to dis-
prove the doctrine of the eternity of atoms and main-
tains that cosmic matter, in the form of cosmic atoms,
came into being out of rarified space by a creative
act. For proofs of his cosmic theory he refers to
his articles on the subject in the scientific magazines.
Century and Natur. Thus Hess endeavors to estab-

264 NOTES

lish his genetic philosophy by a peculiar scientific
system. He lays special emphasis on the law of con-
servation of energy and sees in it a corroboration of
the Jewish idea of the oneness and uniqueness of the
creative being. He applies this law to the social
world. An exact Social Science does not as yet
exist. Science has hitherto had for its- object only
Nature, namely, the cosmic and organic life-spheres.
The reason for it is that the possible object of a
Social Science, namely, the social world, is still in the
process of becoming, but science deals with objective
and concrete things. And this is the reason that sci-
ence has little to do with religion; for religion, as
well as morality, is a product of social life. The
adoption of the Jewish idea of the unity of life by
science will be accomplished in the following manner:
Science will, on the one hand, abandon the pagan con-
ception of the eternity of matter or atoms, and, on
the other hand, will purge the idea of unity from its
anthropomorphic elements with which the racial
genius had endowed it, and which prevented it from
deeply influencing the social, human life. It is only
after the complete development of the human and
social life that science will perform its proper func-
tion and vindicate its utility.

Note VHI

Luzzato expresses himself quite frankly concern-
ing the sacrificial cult ; he assigns to it a pre-Mosaic
origin. The word Kadosh — holy, which is undoubt-

NOTES 265

edly older than the Mosaic law, is derived, according
to him, from the words Yekod esh — burned by fire,
referring to the ancient usage of burning all sacri-
fices. Luzzato speaks with authority. According to
him, the sacrificial cult described in the Bible was a
concession made by Moses to the popular beliefs of
the children of Israel, in order to forestall a rever-
sion to paganism. It had also another purpose,
namely, to strengthen the unity of the people, by
compelling them to bring their sacrifices to one place,
the Temple at Jerusalem. It had likewise a charit-
able aim in view when it prescribed that every volun-
tary offering must be immediately consumed, for thus
it often happened that the poor were invited to the
sacrificial feast. Just as with the paschal lamb, so
it was with many free-will offerings ; almost every
head of a family brought an offering at least once
a year; and thus the sacrificial cult really formed
the basis of Jewish solidarity which is so practically
expressed in the saying: "All Jews are responsible
for one another."

Maimonides goes still further, and sees in the limi-
tation of the sacrificial cult to one place a tendency
to restrain its practise. He, like other thinkers, con-
siders the sacrificial cult a concession to pagan forms
of worship, but he emphasizes the fact that the pur-
pose of Moses was to displace, by means of the sac-
rificial ceremonies, the practise of human sacrifices,
which was widespread among the nations of the East.
A similar explanation is offered by Abarbanel in his
commentary to Exodus, namely, that the sacrifice of

256 NOTES

the paschal lamb was instituted to divert the people
from the worship of the Egyptian god Ammon, who
was represented as having a lamb's head.

It is certain that the practise of human sacrifices,
which was common to all nations of antiquity, was
displaced only after great effort, by the gradual
spread of the institution of animal sacrifices. The
history of antiquity. Biblical as well as pagan, proves
this assertion. The story of the trial of Abraham,
where the angel, immediately after refusing to accept
the sacrifice of Isaac, substitutes the animal in his
place, reflects this tendency. A similar meaning is
to be seen in the story of Euripides, where Artemis
had taken Iphigenia from the sacrificial stall, a deer
was found in her place. But custom dies hard, and
long after it ceases to exist, traces of it still survive.
Such traces of human sacrifice we find both in the
Old Testament^ and in Grecian legend. Iphigenia
herself, after she escapes from Aulis, reappears on
Mount Tauris as a Priestess of Artemis and is by her
commanded to sacrifice every Greek appearing on
the mountain. More widely spread and more deeply
rooted in the life of the people than among the pre-
biblical kinsmen of the Jews and the Greeks, were
human sacrifices among the other nations of anti-
quity. In India, in Egypt, in ancient Germany, as
well as among the Semitic nations, human sacrifices
had been widely practised. The Franks, who accom-
panied King Theudobert on his march into Italy, sac-

1 Cf. II Kings iii, 27, the story of the sacrifice by Mesha, the
Moabite King, of his eldest son. — Trantlator.

NOTES 267

rificed the women and children of captive Goths,
throwing the first-fruits of their victory into the
Po.^ The view that a human sacrifice was required
in order to propitiate the wrath of God, persisted
even in the Christian world, which looks upon the
Crucifixion of Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement.
Echoes of this conception, though not as gross, we
find also in the Zohar, where it is said: "The inno-
cent sometimes serves as an offering to atone for the
sins of others, and therefore do the pious suffer to
atone for the sins of the world."^ The slaughter of
a rooster for each male member of the family and of
a hen for each female member, on the eve of the Day
of Atonement, is a survival of the former substitu-
tion of animal sacrifices in the place of man, as the
accompanying prayer indicates : "May this animal
be my atonement and substitute. May it go to death
and I to a long and peaceful life." Just as animal
sacrifices had formerly taken the place of human sac-
rifices, so have the former in turn been displaced by
prayers. The prophets and other sacred writers of
Israel urged the substitution persistently.* A re-
lapse in case of Jewish restoration of the Jewish cult
into its former usage of sacrifices is therefore no
more possible than a similar relapse from animal to
human sacrifices was possible in former times. But
a stationary stage in the Jewish cult in the future is

2 Procob. BeU. Goth. Ub. II, Chap. 25.
8 Zohar, Part I, p. 60, section 'Noah.

* See, among other passages, Hosea vi, 6; xiv, 4; Micah
vi, 6-8; Isaiah 1, 11; Ixvi, 1.

268 NOTES

likewise unthinkable. The Jewish religion will be
regenerated along with the people.

Note IX

Colonization movements, as we well know, do not
arise merely from mere enthusiasm for a certain idea,
but arise primarily, through the definite demands of
life. They originate mostly in small countries,
where the struggle for existence is very hard and are
directed toward such places where opportunities for
making a living are abundant. Colonization, being
a kind of mass-migration under the protection of the
law, endeavors to seek for labor a better soil and
more extensive rights. If the Jews, with the help of
France, should originate a mass-migration of their
oppressed brethren into the Orient, it will take place
only because the Jewish colonists will find a better
field for gaining a livelihood, and Jewish labor re-
ceive at least as much legal protection as it enjoys
in the Occident. It is to be asked, therefore, whether
these fundamental conditions necessary for a Jewish
settlement in the Orient already exist there. At
present, this is not the case. Nor can we speak as
yet of a Jewish mass-migration to the Holy Land.
But a great vista of possibilities will be opened in
the Orient in the near future, by means of the civili-
zation which once proceeded from there. As a result
of the rapidly-spreading lines of communication, geo-
graphical distance, and with it the difference between
Occidental civilization and Oriental barbarism, are

NOTES 259

quickly disappearing. Civilization which, during the
greater part of the historical development of human-
ity proceeded from East to West, has begun, since
the French Revolution, its backward march over the
globe. Even in geographical relations there has en-
tered a transformation in the movement of life; the
closed circular movement took the place of the cen-
tripetal movements toward progress on the one hand,
and toward its opposite, degeneration, on the other.
The geographical center of culture, which relapsed
for centuries in a death-like rigidity, after it had
given the world the light of the spirit which was first
kindled there, will again be restored to life and influ-
ence. The French tricolor already flutters proudly
in Egypt and Syria, and the appellation applied by
the French poet to the Syrian expedition is no longer
a mere poetical expression, but a prophetic utter-
ance.

Napoleon the First, who had undertaken an expe-
dition into Egypt and the Saint Simonists group,
one of which is at present at the head of the Suez
enterprise, have already recognized how important
it is for France to civilize the Orient. The French
wars in the Crimea and Italy were only preparations
for the solution of the Oriental problem. This solu-
tion consists in the reconciliation of Occident^ cul-
ture with that of the Oriental Semites who until now
have formed a historical typical contrast to the Indo-
Germans. Ernest Renan has clearly described this
contrast, but he has also emphasized the fact that
the Semites possess the ability to awaken once more

260 NOTES

from spiritual death into a new life in a much higher
degree than the Indo-Germans.

After the work on the Suez Canal is completed the
interests of world commerce will undoubtedly demand
the establishment of depots and settlements along
the road to India and China, settlements of such a
character as will transform the neglected and an-
archic state of the countries lying along this road
into legal and cultivated States. This can occur only
under the military protection of the European pow-
ers. Sagacious French diplomacy has always planned
to annex the Orient to the precincts of culture. Un-
doubtedly, envy, which has caused the French to
oppose the liberation of Italy, will also effect the
French Oriental political policy with desires for con-
quest and domination. The French have learned,
since their great Revolution, to overcome the dualism,
of the Material and Ideal in social life, as the work
from which I have quoted indicates. The Material in
that plan does not exclude "the Ideal, and the latter is
not a mere dream but has a Material basis. The one
who appeals to a higher ideal is as little a hypocrite
because he has also material interests at heart, as the
one who sees in the earthly root of human affairs, the
budding farces of the higher spirit is a dreamer.

It is well understood that \^e speak of a Jewish
settlement in the Oi-ient. We do not, however, mean
to imply a total emigration of the Occidental Jews
to Palestine. Even after the establishment of a Jew-
ish State, the majority of the Jews who live at pres-.

NOTES 261

ent in the civilized Occidental countries will undoubt-
edly remain where they are.

The Occidental Jews, who have only recently
broken their way through to culture and have ac-
quired an honorable civic position, will not abandon
the valuable acquisition so quickly even if the res-
toration of Judaea were more than a pious desire.
Such a sacrifice of a prize acquired with great effort
is hardly to be expected even from patriotic Jews, let
alone the majority of our "educated" parvenues, who
have succeeded in breaking off all relations with the
Jewish family and their unfortunate brethren, and
who are proud of the fact that they have turned their
back on the misery of their people. Yet this will not
prevent the nobler natures among them from interest-
ing themselves more deeply in the people whom they
really do not know any more, and support it in its
historical mission, when it will have the courage to
reclaim its ancient fatherland in a natural, human
way.

There has been a central unity among the Jews at
all times, even among those who were scattered to
the very confines of the earth. Jews have maintained
' a relation with the spiritual center wherever it was.
No nation has ever felt as keenly the excitement go-
ing on in the spiritual nerve-center as have the Jews.
Every spiritual sensation spread rapidly from the
center to the extreme periphery of the national or-
ganism. The dispersion^ even to the very ends of the
world, had not hindered, even in antiquity, the scat-
tered members of this remarkable people from par-

262 NOTES

ticipating in every national undertaking, from shar-
ing the fortunes and misfortunes of fate. To-day,
when distance is no more an obstacle to communica-
tion, it is of little consequence to a Jewish State
whether more or less of the Jewish race dwells within
or without its borders. Already during the existence
of the old Jewish State, many Jews lived in foreign
countries. The Jew-hater Haman could already at
the time of the Second Temple utter the words which
even to-day the enemies of the Jews constantly re-
peat: "There is a nation scattered abroad and dis-
persed among the people." However, there is hardly
any civilized nation to-day, members of which are
not found in foreign lands, either as foreigners or as
naturalized citizens. As long as a Jewish State does
not exist as a member of the civilized nations of the
world, the Jews who live in exile must necessarily
strive to obtain naturalization and "emancipation",
though they by no means abandon the hope of the
restoration of the Jewish State. The nations which
are no more under the tutelage of their mediaeval
Christian war lords do not for a moment hesitate to
grant the Jews equal rights, to which they are justly
entitled for their unexampled loyalty and fidelity to
their nationality.

Note X

The Hebrew newspaper Hamagid, which ap-
pears in Lyck, East Prussia, prints, in its issue of
the 26th of March, a report of a meeting held in
Melbourne, Australia, in December, 1861, in which

NOTES 263

Christian as well as Jewish notables participated.
The President, Lyons, opened the meeting and de-
clared its purpose to be, "to enable the Jews to ac-
quire land on Mount Zion, on which houses for the
accommodation of Jewish pilgrims should be built,
and that this may serve as the first step toward a
Jewish settlement in Palestine." After him, a Jew-
ish scholar spoke in Hebrew, an interpreter translat-
ing his speech into English. He spoke on the same
subject as a Jewish patriot, and his address was en-
thusiastically received. Then a Christian minister
addressed the audience on behalf of the restoration
of the Jews. "To which nation," he exclaimed,
"should the Holy Land fall as an inheritance.? To
Turkey .P She is already in the grip of death and
her days are numbered. To France.'' Russia and
England will prevent it, just as Russia and France
will object to the rule of England; and France will
oppose a Russian occupation. No one should in-
herit it but the Jews, who will thus come into their
own patrimony, the land which their ancestors had
acquired with the assistance of God." Finally, the
Dean of the Melbourne University declared that for
years he had continually told his countrymen that it
will not take long before the Jews regain possession
of the land which belongs to them and which was
promised to them. His joy will be great to live to
see the first step toward the carrying out of his
dream. And no matter how small the beginning may
be, he was confident that it will finally lead to the
great goal. Like the second redemption from exile,

264 NOTES

so must also the third be effected in a natural way,
with the help of God, and it is the sacred duty of
Christians to help the Jews in their endeavor. It
was then decided to appoint a Committee for the
purpose of soliciting contributions throughout
Australia in order to acquire land for the Jews in
the Holy Land.

Before this report was published in East Prussia,
and could hardly have been generally known, there
appeared the third part of the work of Rabbi Hirsh
KaUscher — Emwnoh Yeshoroh — "The Right Faith".
The opinions of three great Jewish authorities, which
preface it, support the view of R. Kalischer, who is
in total agreement with the Dean of Melbourne Uni-
versity, that the return from the third exile must
take place in a natural manner, under the protection
of the European powers and with the help of our in-
fluential race-brethren who seem to have been provi-
dentially called to their high position. "The first
'. thing to-day," says the author, "is to found a Com-
pany for Jewish colonization in Palestine, to acquire ]
land and prepare it for settlement." "There is no
greater service for the pious Jew to perform," adds
our author, "than to rebuild the ruins of the Holy
Land."

Postscript

At the last moment, when these letters and notes
had already left the press, my attention was called
to Fichte's attack on the Jews, in the Kreuzzeittmg,
and to a similar attack which was published last

NOTES 265

year in Berlin, in a pamphlet, entitled, The Jews
and the German State.

I wish it had been possible for me to have seen this
Christian-German product before. But as it is too
late for detailed analysis, I wish to remark that one
glance at the book convinced me that this anony-
mous author, recently converted to the Kreuzzei-
tung's party, is only a "speculative" atheist and
revolutionary, with whom the German public has
certainly little sympathy.